Cinema Papers June-July 1976

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MOTION PICTURE PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS A film by Philippe Mora

DENNIS HOPPER

Produced by JEREMY THOMAS Written and Directed by PHILIPPE MORA Based on the book MORGAN by Margaret Carnegie Co'Starring

JACK THOMPSON

DAVID GULPILIL

FRANK THRING

Guest Stars

MICHAEL PATE BILL H UN TER

WALLAS EATON GRAEME BLUNDELL

With

Don Barkham Kurt Beimel Peter Collingwood Peter Cummins John Derum Gerry Duggan Max Fairchild Chuck Faulkner Hugh Keays-Byrne Robert McDarra Christopher Pate Bruce Spence Peter Thompson Roger Ward PANA VISION ®

EASTMANCOLOR Filmed in some of the most spectacular locations on the Australian continent.

__________________________ DISTRIBUTED BY ©

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PB05127

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To help you find the answer ask for our rental and sales catalogues.

Choose from nearly 2000 titles of films specially selected for education and entertainment purposes.

Consult our staff at

EDUCATIONAL /MEDIA AJSTRMJA 237 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne. 3205 Tel. 69 6340, 699 1806

CADDIE" ah autobiography written by herself, is how available as a "Sun" paperback.

- ■ In her affectionate introduction Dymphna Cusack relis thé story of the book and w hat little is known o f the real Caddie. This, fresh, w arm ­ ' hearted but totally sophisticated book stirred the literary critics to superlatives when it first appeared in 1953. .

■, . j r : , A moving and most human story . . . Hers is a success story thot will moke you proud to be o human being. ’ ^ :

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o f fWea in c W in g n e w A u s t r a l i a n i French and INfe'classic films and many other fe a tu re s and shorts. |p i ¡ ||e history of Australian Cinema is due to jp |in early 1977.

The AFI organises the anni ¡Awards competition. j|f you would like to make a 1 ....... ..... . jth e Basic Production Fund & TV fund) for the Ausi ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ u r t h e r information on the; 000^ ^ 0' ' ' act'v‘t ‘es (¡needing our nev

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Executive Director Australian Film Institute »er IPO !»__ Box< 165 Carlton South, Vic. 3053 Telephone: (03) 347 6888

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ANNOUNCING

o f the

Line-up of Top Product

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“INSERTS" “LOVE AND MISSOURI “1900” DEATH” BREAKS”

an ALBERTO GRIMALDI Production

RICHARD DREYFUSS in

“INSERTS” co-starring

WOODY ALLEN

JESSICA HARPER • BOB HOSKINS

and

VERONICA CARTWRIGHT

DIANE KEATON

STEPHEN DAVIES produced by DAVINA BELLING and

in “LOVE AND DEATH’ A JACK ROLLINS— CHARLES H. JO FEE Production

CLIVE PARSONS written and directed by JOHN BYRUM

written and directed by WOODY ALLEN

ELLIOTT KASTNER Presents MARLON BRANDO and JACK NICHOLSON in an ARTHUR PENN film ‘THE MISSOURI BREAKS” ROBERT M. SHERMAN Production Directed by ARTHUR PENN

A film by BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI “ 1900”

ROBERT DE NIRO GERARD DEPARDIEU DOMINIQUE SANDA LAURA BETTI * WERNER BRUHNS STEFANIA CASINI STIRLING HAYDEN ANNA HENKEL • HELLEN SCHWIERS ALIDA VALLI • ROMOLO VALLI STEFANIA SANDRELLI DONALD SUTHERLAND and BURT LANCASTER

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M elbourne: 69 N icholson St, East B runsw ick. 38 692 2. Sydney: 17 A lb e rta St. 26 2926. Brisbane: 244 St Paul's Terrace, F o rtitu d e V a lle y. 52 8188. Adelaide: L H Marcus Pty L td , 242 Pirie St. 23 2946.

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X373A

PACE

The roar of the fans subsides as the announcer gains ascendence with race details and the winner's performance.

The crowd has already forgotten the names of the unplaced horses, however, losers and winners have in common years of patient nurture and discipline for which the race is the ultimate measure of achievement.

Director John Shaw introduces us to the forma­ tive years during which a foal is transformed into a trotter. Whilst the stages of growth are specific; from birth to breaking, schooling to racetrack debut, the film remains one of feelings and impressions which sustain themselves long after the 21>2 minutes running time.

Film Australia Australian Film Commission

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A film about trotting m ade with the assistance of the NSW Trotting Club Ltd.

A rticles and Interviews Milos Forman: Interview

David Stratton andKate Fitzpatrick

10

Cuckoo’s Nest — a cultural interpretation

Ian Hunter

15

De Forest Phonofilms

Ian Griggs

15

Max Lemon: Interview

Vince O’Donnell

21

Miklos Jancso

John O’Hara

24

Andrew Gatty: Interview

Antony I. Ginnane

•

30

Australian Women Filmmakers Part 1

Milos Forman Interviewed: 10

Joan.Long

Circles and Plains Miklos Jancso: 24

34

Luchino Visconti 1906-1976

Jack Clancy and Robert Schar

39

Robin Spry: Interview

Jan Dawson

42

David Greig: Interview

Kevin Anderson

47

Features The Quarter Guide for the Australian Film Producer

Antony l. Ginnane and Leon Gorr

8

44

Production Report: Oz

Scott Murray Production Survey Preview: The Filming of Mad Dog

Australian Women Filmmakers Part 1: 34

Peter Beilby

51 61 66

Soundtracks

Ivan Hutchinson Columns Letters

79 81 85

Film Reviews Caddie Jack Clancy The Devil’s Playground John O’Hara The Trespassers Jack Clancy Dog Day Afternoon Tom Ryan The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother John C. Murray Innocents with Dirty Hands Tom Ryan

Luchino Visconti Interviewed: 39

71 72 74 74

75 77

Innocents with Dirty Hands Reviewed: 77

Editorial Board: Peter Beilby, Philippe Mora, Scott Murray. Managing Editor: Scott Murray. Contributing Editors: Antony I. Ginnane, Rod Bishop, Graham Shirley, David Elflck. Design and Layout: Keith Robertson. Office Manager: Mary Reichenvater. Editorial Assistance: Andrew Pecze. Assistance: Pat O'Neill, Maurice Perera, Kitty Kompe.

Correspondents: London — Jan Dawson. Montreal — Dave Jones. Photography: Gordon Glenn, Virginia Coventry.

Advertising: Melbourne — Barbara Guest, Tel. 3295983. Sydney — Zoo Adler, Tel. 261625. Printing: Waverley Offset Group. Distribution: Consolidated Press Pty. Ltd. Cinema Papers is produced with financial assistance from the Film, Radio and Television Board of the Australia Council. Signed articles represent the views of their authors and not necessarily those of the Editors. While every care is taken of manuscripts and materials supplied for this magazine, neither the Editors nor the Publishers accept any liability for loss or damage which may arise. This magazine may not, by way of trade, be reproduced In whole or in part, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Cinema Papers is published every three months by Cinema Papers, 143 Therry Street, Melbourne 3000 (Tel. 3295983); 365A Pitt Street, Sydney (Tel. 261625). Copyright Cinema Papers, June/July, 1976.

Front cover: Arthur Dignam as the tortured Brother Francine in Fed Schepisi’s The Devil’s Playground. (Frame enlargement from CRI courtesy of Fred Schepisi and Film House.)

Recommended price only.

IT’S NOT ALL FUN AT THE TOP Getting the opportunity to produce a film is difficult enough, but for some reaching the top of the producing tree can have its own unique and difficult problems.

Irwin Allen, producer of The Tower­ ing Inferno and Poseidon Adventure, among others, has been recently hav­ ing d iffic u ltie s w ith his s u p e r­ productions — they tend to rocket in budget so much in the pre-production stage that they are either shelved or drastically revised.

Allen has now moved to Warner Bros after being at TwentiethCentury Fox for the past 14 years and he has taken several projects with him, including Circus) Circus) Circus) and The Day the World Ended. Both of these films were passed over at Twentieth-Century Fox when it looked as if Circus) would exceed its estimated $10 million budget and World its $15 million. World has been re-thought, its script by Nelson Gidding ‘dropped’ and a new start planned for early spring (it was to have started on March 22).

First up at Warner Bros, however, appears to be the $5 million Viva Knievel, with the cyclist himself, follow­ ed by The Last Ride West and a $1 million television pilot film, Brush Fire.

Last Ride, “ the biggest Western ever made” , is based on an original idea by Allen, is being novelized by Irving Wallace and will be scripted by Clare Huffaker. The film deals with the last Pony Express in the Old West and will have 64 roles for “stars, superstars and great character actors” . It will cost around $15 million and is due to roll in two year’s time.

Allen’s longest scheduled film, Swarm, has now been re-budgeted to $5 million, given a screenplay by Stirl­ ing Silliphant and David Z. Goodman, and a planned release for 1977. And to add to all the confusion, Allen has to still honour his contract at TwentiethCentury Fox and produce Beyond the Poseiden Adventure. Whether Allen will direct any of these films is uncer­ tain. (Allen directed the action se­ quences in The Towering Inferno.)

B IR TH S , R EBIRTH S AND REVIVALS John Ford’s last film, the half-hour Chesty, was recently premiered at the 1976 Los Angeles Film Exposition. The film, made in 1968-70 for television but never released, is a “documentary portrait” of U.S. Marine Lt. General Lewis (Chesty) Puller. It is compiled of an interview with Puller (Ford asking questions on camera), newsreel footage and a commentary from a cowboy-outfitted John Wayne. The reaction at the exposition was generally unfavourable and film is unlikely to be widely seen.

Meanwhile, a revival is possibly in store for Gene Kelly’s 1952 threesegment feature, Invitation to Dance. It was originally released in 1957 but the film was not exactly a box-office hit and quickly disappeared. However, the success of That’s Entertainment, and guaranteed success of That’s Enter­ tainment Part 2 which opened this year’s Cannes Festival and which con­ tains a clip of the film, has led to speculation of revival in specialized 8 — Cinema Papers, June-July

outlets. Film was shot in Britain and Hollywood by Freddie Young and Joseph Rittenburg and starred, among others, Tamara Toumanova, Belita, Carol Haney and Diane Adams.

Orson Welles’ masterly study of cor­ ruption, Touch of Evil, was, when originally released by Universal, in 1958, missing several minutes — a fate similar to that of The Magnificent Ambersons which was severely mutilated by RKO. Touch of Evil, however, has been restored to its original form and recent­ ly released in the U.S. A 16mm print is now owned by Australasian Film Hire and is scheduled for Australian release.

(In Melbourne it is to be the Rivoli.)

Australians will not only see those minutes missing in the U.S., but also those deleted by Australia’s, as usual, overzealous censor. Censorship cuts virtually destroyed two of the film’s most important sequences — the tor­ ture of Susan Vargas (Janet Leigh) at the motel and the murder of “ Uncle” Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) by his ac­ complice, Detective Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles), after Quinlan has drugged Susan in an attempt to pin the murder on her. ' With this interest being shown in reconstructing films, it is to be hoped that someone will soon reconstruct Ambersons. The deleted footage is supposedly held in a vault along with a few million other feet of film. Although this sounds a gargantuan task, four or five researchers working on 3-image Steenbecks could accomplish the necessary sorting out without much dif­ ficulty.

In Australia, it is commendable that so many films are now being sent back to the censor for reclassification. Some years ago the Dendy group had Bergman’s The Silence restored to its original version, much to the obvious benefit of the film. This was followed . later by Midnight Cowboy. Today, we find innumerable advertisements for uncut Leone films, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. Hopefully, we will soon see the entire Once Upon a Time in the West with both its censor and distributor cuts intact.

AND STILL MORE FIGURES Figures are now out for the first quarter of 1976.

United Artists earned $5,506,000 up 28 per cent from $4,312,000 a year ago, and its best ever quarter. One Flew was a big help. Gross was $92,402,000 up 71 per cent on $78,961,000. Domestic theatrical film results not yet released but are expected to be around $25,000,000.

Walt Disney has released figures for the six months up to March 31 this year.

The earnings of $29,198,000 is a record and up 37 per cent on the previous $21,341,000. Sales were $255,288,000 up 21 per cent on $210,968,000. Ren­ tals are $62,648,000 up 21 per cent on $50,190,000.

After five profitable years, TwentiethCentury Fox has reported a losing quarter. A year ago profit was $4,535,­ 000 but this year was a negative $1,585,000. A decline in the Australian circuit was listed as one of three major reasons (the others being lower than expected rentals and a poor time in the record division). Lucky Lady certainly didn’t help either despite grabbing

much up-front money. Sales were ac­ tually 2 per cent up, $83,515,000 com­ pared to last year’s $81,509,000.

Warner Bros’ profit rose 9 per cent from $14,254,000 to $15,537,000; and s a le s fro m $1 7 1 ,2 8 9 ,0 0 0 to $181,975,000, (up 6 per cent). The breakdown of sales is interesting as film rentals from theatres went down 13 per cent from $60,1 19,000, to $52,203,000, but films sold to televi­ sion resulted in a 232 per cent increase to $16,934,000; a 34 per cent increase in CATV to $1 2,1 3 3,0 00 ; and record/tapes/music up 18 per cent to $85,152,000.

OUTPACING INFLATION: AUSTRALIAN BUDGETS There is a lot of talk at present over what constitutes a “ realistic” budget for an Australian feature film. But the whole discussion really hinges on whether a film is meant for the Australian market, the overseas market, or both.

The ceiling on box-office gross in Australia is around $2 million, and that is for a big success like Picnic at Hang­ ing Rock. Now if we apply the useful, but occasionally inaccurate “4 to 1” rule (of every four dollars collected at the box-office, one gets back to the producer as rental), the maximum budget for a film which will only be released in A ustralia has to be $500,000. But if we assume that $2 million is, in many cases, an over­ optimistic figure, the maximum budget then has to be $250,000 to $300,000.

The interesting point, however, is that very, very few films are made on such a budget — they are either well over (Break of Day has a $617,000 budget and Mrs Frazer an $800,000 one) or much less (The Trespasser’s was $145,000 and Oz, $150.0001.

This polarization could be the beginning of a trend where some film­ makers will aim, and by necessity must aim, at the overseas market, while others will make films solely for domestic release.

Given this, however, does it mean the $250,000 film is in a no-man’s land between both extremes?. It may well prove to be, but at this stage it seems, to this writer at least, a possible area of exploration. Perhaps ways can be found to make $350,000 films for $250,­ 000 — smaller crews, stories that don’t demand expensive locations, and so on.

A much quoted example of this con­ cept is the shot of the carriage passing through Woodend in Picnic. The whole road is covered with dirt to suit the period but, as has been pointed out, the entire scene could have been ade­ quately shot without framing in the road at all. A small cinematic concession for a reasonable cost saving?

Similarly, as has been mentioned in many reviews — including Jack Clan­ cy’s on page 71 of this issue — every exterior shot in Caddie seems to have a horse, cart or antique car pass by in it.

This wasn’t always necessary for period flavour and on one occasion, the end of the tram ride, the effect is uninten­ tionally humorous.

In the U.S., Columbia Picture In­ dustries are under pressure to control their budgets and though these budgets are not on the same scale by any means, the reason behind the move was economic necessity — as it

could turn out to be here.

As of February 2, 1976, Columbia owed $106,344,000 and this is a 33 per cent improvement onthe $160,000,000 debt they had mid-1973. Columbia “ex­ pects” this debt to be less than $100 million by the end of 1976 but, ac­ cording to the Securities and Exchange Commission, it “ must” be if they are to meet the te rm s of th e ir c re d it agreement. And to ensure this im­ provement, Columbia has had a term written into the 13-bank credit agree­ ment (for $113 million) to the effect that Columbia cannot solely produce any film with a budgeted neg cost of over $5 million. As well, Columbia cannot par­ ticipate in any joint project which has a budget in excess of $8 million. They can, however, produce during one year three “separate” films of more than $5 million each provided “the aggregate amount of such excess in respect of any such item of product . . . does not exceed $2,500,000” .

AWARDS, AWARDS The major winners at this year’s 1976 International Cannes Film Festival were: Palme D’Or: Taxi Driver iScorcese) Special Jury Prize: Cria Cuervos (Saura) ; Marquise D’O (Rohmer) Best Actor: Jose Juis Gomez in Pascual Duarte Best Actress: Mari Torocsik in Where Are You Madame Dery? (Maar) ; Dominque Sanda in The Heritage (Bolognini) Best Direction: Ettore Scola for Ugly, Dirty and Mean.

And while on the subject of awards, the F rench e q u iv a le n t of the Academies, the Caesars, were an­ nounced at the Congress Palace, Paris, just prior to Cannes.

Best Film: The Old Gun (Enrico) Best Actor: Philippe Noiret for The Old Gun Best Actress: Romy Schneider for The Important Thing is Love (Zulawski) Best Director: Bertrand Taverner for Let Joy Reign Supreme Best Script: Jean Aurenche and Bertrand Taverner for Let Joy Reign Supreme Best Photography: Sven Nykvist for Black Moon (Malle) Best Foreign Film: Scent of a Woman (Risi)

KESEY CUCKOO OVER NEST Writers’ grievances have been highlighted of late with confrontations between writers and producers. The most celebrated case is, of course, that b e tw e e n . Ken K e sey and th e producers of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas. Many observers had commented on the lack of mention of Kesey when the film was first released, but it was not until the 1976 Academy Awards that the story took front page.

Overall, the film won five Academies, but in collecting these awards only Milos Forman made reference to Kesey. The U.S. press turned what they considered a deliberate act of omission into a strong campaign against Zaentz and Douglas, some even suggesting that these new generation producers were little different to those of the past.

THE QUARTER

Naturally, Zaentz and Douglas replied to these allegations and stated that although the film had a domestic box­ office gross in excess of $30,000,000, it was still to return its $4,000,000 neg cost because of the time delay of monies coming in. Zaentz has promis­ ed Kesey he will be paid at the same ; time as everyone else, including himself and Nicholson.

Kesey also went on to attack the producers over what he claimed was a failure to pay him for (a) the book rights, and (b) the screenplays (three were written but all were rejected). The screen credit now is “ Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman” .

The real issue, however, seems to be between a writer and producer who have an understanding with each other but not a contract, a lesson for writers in any country.

In Australia there are, fortunately, many writers aware of the need to stand up for their rights. Cliff Green, for example, is an Associate Producer on Break of Day, which he scripted. No one is seriously arguing that writers should always have executive positions to ‘protect’ their interests, but it is es­ sential that writers be financially rewarded for their work. And since there is often resistance to a writer receiving a percentage, this is one method of ensuring equity.

Blue Ferns. The French hit of the year is still A Nous Les Petites Anglaises produced by Bunuel’s producer Serge Silberman. Film concerns some young French girls holidaying in Britain. After the disastrous La Vallee and disap­ pointing Idi Amin, Barbet Schroeder is back with Maitresse with Gerard Depardieu, definitely the busiest actor and Bulle Ogier, definitely the most secretive . Jean Luis Berticelli’s latest is The Accuser adapted from the novel of the same name. The irrepressible Pierre Granier-Deferre is shooting Unne Femme a sa Fenetre and has Venise in Octobre set to roll straight after. After Emmanuelle II, still un­ released, photographer-come-director Francois Giacombetti (now calling himself Francis) is starting Madam Claude in Paris, Washington and the Bahamas. The Swiss film causing all the noise is Raphael Rebibo’s La Bulle, a terrifying fantasy of police persecution. Rene Clement who is still in need of a good film to keep his critical reputation, a reputation severe­ ly damaged by the unfortunate Babysitter, is planning Man of Blood.

Sylvia Kistel is extremely busy finishing a new Vadim film and Madame Bovary, of all things.

ITALY

FOREIGN PRODUCTION NEWS

u.s.

Jack Smight has just completed Midway, his film on "history's most decisive naval battle”, and is making Damnation Alley. Midway is in Sensurround and stars Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda and James Coburn.

Robert Aldrich after a string of flops is back hoping with Twilights’ Last Gleaming. It stars Burt Lancaster, Joseph Cotten and Richard Widmark.

Aldrich will follow with The Choirboys based on Joseph Wambaugh’s best­ seller. James Clavell, popular novelist and director of The Last Valley with Michael Cain, is to direct his own book, Shogun. Peckinpah is shooting Cross of Iron in Yugoslavia and it stars James Coburn, James Mason, David Warner and Senta Berger.. Steven Jaws Speilberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Richard Dreyfuss sta rte d D ecem ber 29, stopped December 30, and hopefully resumes this May. Tony Richardson returns to Henry Feilding, this time with a version of Joseph Andrews. Ann-Margret, Peter Finch and Michael Horden head the cast. George Lucas’ Star Wars with Alec Guinness is presently shooting in Tunisia. Exorcist director William Friedkin is at it again with his ‘remake’ of Wages of Fear, Sorcerer. Roy Scheider from Jaws is lead. Robert Alt­ mans’ new film is The Late Show. His last, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, was due at Cannes this year but failed to make it, ostensibly because of post­ production delays. The $25 million superepic, A Bridge Too Far, has started shooting in Holland under Richard Attenborough. The cast is endless. Joseph Strick is following up on his earlier James Joyce adaptation, Ulysses, with Joyce’s A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Shooting is, naturally, taking place in Dublin. To follow The Pink Panther Strikes Again director Blake Edwards has S.O.B., a multi-million dollar comedy about Hollywood. Mark L. Lester, director of the extraordinary Truck Stop Women, has a new film on release — Bobby, Jo and the Outlaw with Lynda Carter of Wonder Woman fame. Behind the Green Door and Resurrection of Eve, both with porn star Marilyn Chambers, are now being released world-wide in “optically modified” versions. Paris Sci Fi Festival winner, Paul Death Race 2000 Bartel, has finished his new film, Cannonball, with David Carradine.

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EDITH CLEVER BRUNO GANZ ■EDDA SEIPPEL ■PETER LUHR O TTO SANDER Camera r NESTOR ALMENDROS - Sound : JEAN-PIERRE RUH - Wardrobe iMOIDELE BICKEL

Tinto Brass has been signed to direct Gore Vidal’s Caligula. Brass’ Saloon Kitty has been released uncut by the Italian censors — a new government was elected. This government has since resigned so film may find itself banned again. New film s include B o l o g n i n i ’ s The I n h e r i t a n c e , Salvatore Samperi's Scandal, Valerio Zurlini’s epic Desert of the Tartars with Jean-Louis Trintignant, Phillipe Noiret and Vittorio Gassman. This film on the French For ei gn Legion has a screenplay by Jean Luis Bertucelli and Andre Brunelin. Bertucelli has directed, among others, Ramparts of Clay. Carlo Lizzani’s The Human Cargo, a film on mercenaries, is due to start shooting in Africa in July. Cashing in on Exhibition, director Damiano Damiani is making Eyes, a film which asks “ is a porno actress a human being?” Liliana Cavani has finished another film with Charlotte Rampling, The People of Misar.

SWEDEN Vilgot Sjoman has a sensational new film in the works. It is called Taboo and is rumored to greatly outlive I am Curious in the sensation department. It is produced by John Doner for the Swedish Film Institute. Donner will leave soon, however, to make his own Sweden — A Love Letter. Bo W i d e r b e r g has f i n i s h e d The Abominable Man from a novel by Sjowall and Wahloo. Jan Troell is back in Sweden and has finished Bang with Susan Hampshire. Meanwhile, Ingmar Bergman, before he left in a hurry, produced first feature by his one-time actress, Gunnel Lindblom, Paradise Square. Haldoff is still Sweden’s most successful director and his new film Buddies is a box-office sensation.

Peter Watkins has left the U.S. and gone to Norway where he made a film on the painter Edward Munch. He is now in Denmark editing Coup D’Etat.

Bert Torn has made a porno film of Maupassant’s masterly novel Bel Ami.

BRITAIN Alexander Salkind (The Three Musketeers) is producing Richard Fleischer's The Prince and the Pauper.

Producer Nico Mastorakis has signed up Jacqueline Bisset and Anthony Quinn for his still-projected film on the Onassis’ family, The Great Tycoon.

Britih producer’ Sir Lew Grade has a few major films going at present: The Cassandra Crossing (producing with Carlo Ponti), a George Pan Cosmatos film with Sophie Loren and Richard Harris; The Domino Principle directed

by Stanley Kramer, and starring Gene Hackman and Candice Bergen; The

Eagle Has Landed with Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland. Cult director of Friends and Paul and Michele, Lewis Gilbert, is to make the new Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me with Roger Moore.

FRANCE France had many films directed by women this year. Christine Lipinska’s I Am Pierre Riviere; Jeanne Moreau's Lumiere; Nelly Kaplan’s third feature Nea (Kaplan to follow with Au Bonheur des Dames); Yannick Bellon’s third Never Again Always; and novelist Fran­ çoise Sagan has made her first film,

GERMANY Herzog has finished Heart of Glass, Fassbinder Game Pass, Syberberg The Confessions of Winifred Wagner, Schlondorf Le Coup de Grace,.

Schroeter Falcons d’or and Schmid Shadow of Angels. Two new Fassbinders are in the works: Satans Braten and Chinesisches Rouletter.

Win Wender’s new film will be Rule Without Exception.

All Quarter items were written by Scott Murray.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 9

10 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Cinema Papers, June-July

M ilos Forman has made only five feature films since 1964, three o f them in his native Czechoslovakia and two in the U .S. As a director, he is not very interested in beautiful images or fancy tricks; he is very much an actor’s director, though he fre­ quently uses non-professionals. In a Forman film, the charm, the humour and the warmth all come from the director’s at­ titude towards his characters — an unfashionable failing for which he has been viciously attacked both in Prague and Los Angeles, on the grounds that he ridicules the people of Czechoslovakia and the U .S. Even Australian feminist Beatrice Faust, reviewing “ One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s N est” in the ‘Nation Review’, claimed to find his work as a whole ugly and boring.

Forman has dealt chiefly with the generation gap. In “Black Peter” (also known as “ Peter and Pavla” ), Peter’s parents cannot comprehend his lack of enthusiasm for a very boring job in a small-town supermarket, nor begin to understand his shyness and awkwardness resultant from sexual inexperience.

In “ Loves of a Blonde” (also known as “ A Blonde in Love” ), the older generation is seen to be lecherous (the three middleaged soldiers who try to seduce young girls at a dance), or hopelessly old-fashioned (the truculent parents of the boy the blonde sleeps with). In “The Fireman’s Ball” , we find the befuddled fireman trying to emulate American sophistication with a beauty competition, though it is just another excuse to perve on some young girls. And in “Taking O f f ’, his first American film, the parents o f the missing teenagers are joyous­ ly lampooned as they try to understand their children better by smoking pot and making agonizing small-talk. “Taking O f f ’, an extremely fine film, flopped badly in the U .S ., but now with the welcome success of “ One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s N est” — five Oscars (including Best Director) and high ratings on the box-office charts — Forman is at the peak of his career. In Sydney to promote “ Cuckoo’s N est” , he talked about his work to actress Kate Fitzpatrick and Sydney Film Festival director, David J. Stratton.

Can we first talk about your You have to do exams and I didn’t background in Czechoslovakia? You pass them. grew up in a food shop . . .

Why? Yes. During the war time I was Well, I don’t know. It doesn’t living with my uncle and he had a small grocery store. That ex­ make any sense, and it doesn’t have perience came in very handy when I any logic to it. You do the exams in later made Black Peter, which May and you learn whether you are takes place in a sort of grocery accepted in August, right before the new school year starts. I went store. through all the exams, which were exhausting, and to tell the In fact, there is a line in “Black very truth it never occurred to me that I Peter” . . . would not be accepted. I thought I had done marvellously. So it was a “Who is close to food is far from shock, when in August, I learnt that the grave.”

I was not accepted. I was in a panic because if I didn’t enter the univer­ What made you decide to become sity, I would have to go and serve a writer — specifically, a film two years in the army, and I wanted writer? to avoid that at any price. So, I looked for a university that had ad­ Well, to be honest, it was partly ditional exams and only two had: an accident. I wanted to work in the the law school and the film school theatre, so I tried to enter a theatre for writers. I applied to both. For­ school in Prague and become a tunately, I was accepted at the film theatre director, but I was rejected. school. effort to understand their children better, a group of American parents experiment with pot. Taking Off.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 11

MILOS FORMAN

Hana Brejchova, as the gentle Andula, in the Loves of a Blonde. The Film was shot by Miroslav Ondricek.

appeared, there was a total freedom for filmmakers. It lasted, unfor­ tunately, for only a few years.

Yes, Vladimir Pucholt, who plays the tall mason’s apprentice.

The rest were non-professionals.

“Black Peter” was your first feature film . Surely it was ideologically rather outspoken for its time — a story about a young man who is not happy with his work and is really, in a very small way, a kind of rebel. How was this screenplay accepted?

Did any of them go on to acting after that?

It was a very lucky period because, in 1962, Khrushchev made a speech in which he said: “We have Top: Pavel Sedlacek in Forman’s First feature, Black Peter (Peter and Pavla). to give more confidence to young Above: “Childhood is a very, very sensitive period . . . your reactions are not yet abused.” people.” So they gave us con­ Loves of a Blonde. fidence. We w orked on the screenplay in full freedom and Did you fail the law exams?

Children of Paradise and Quai des made the film the way we wanted Brumes, Rene Clair’s The Italian to. I took the responsibility for No. The film school exams were Straw Hat, Great Expectations and everything and nobody interfered on a Wednesday and the law school the first Italian neo-realist films of much in it, because they gave us exams were on the Friday, but Rossellini, De Sica, De Santis . . . too this confidence. before I went to the law exams I You then wrote the screenplays learnt that I was already accepted How did you go about casting? I at the film school. Consequently, I for a couple of films before hear that Peter’s father was played didn’t even go to them. directing yourself. At that time, the Czech cinema was going through a by the band leader you had met Your choice of work, therefore, rather funny period — it was coming while shooting a documentary . . . was really the result of chance . . . out of a Stalinist period, and people W hen I s ta rte d in like Kadar and Klos were starting to do interesting things. What was it Czechoslovakia, I didn’t use Yes. like working as a writer in professional actors, but this was not for any aesthetic reason. The real Czechoslovakia at this time?

Did you enjoy the film school? reason was that there weren’t many I started to study film writing, Well, you know, that period was good actors in Czechoslovakia, and and I started to love it. the most exciting I went through, whoever was good was busy doing because in a so-called nationalized theatre work in Prague. You don’t film industry — in a communist have, as in America, actors who Did you see lots of films? country — there is no commercial work solely in films, or solely on Yes. During those four or five pressure on filmmaking at all. Film the stage.

If you are an unknown director years, I saw an endless amount of is considered a tool of propagan­ da, of ideology. So, it doesn’t shooting a hundred miles away films. That was a great thing. matter if it does or doesn’t make from Prague, then you have little money; the film has to serve ideas. chance of getting good actors to What were your favourites?

Of course, there can be ideological work for you. So, rather than wofk My favourites were Charlie pressure, which is often as deadly as with bad actors, I turned to good Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel commercial pressure, but during non-professionals. and Hardy, Stagecoach by John that period when commercial Ford, William Wyler’s The Best p r e s s u r e d id n ’t e x is t, and Were there any professional ac­ Years of our Lives, Marcel Game’s ideological pressure had dis­ tors in “Black Peter”?

12 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Oh, yes. The father did. The girl also, and Peter.

Was there a lot of improvisation during shooting?

I have always worked from an ex­ act screenplay but I also like to im­ provise because you never know what you can get. The danger, however, is that 90 per cent of im­ provisation is boring. That 10 per cent, however, can be so marvellous and fresh and unexpected and un­ repeatable, that it’s worth the try. If you fail, you go back to the script.

I read that the father in “Black Peter” thought the last scene was in­ credibly tragic and dramatic, while the two boys thought it hysterically funny. Consequently, it seems you don’t care whether the actors un­ derstand what you want, as long as they do it right. . .

I don’t care at all. What’s impor­ tant is the result — not what they know, but what they do. If they are doing the right thing, then I don’t care what they think.

So the actors who played the parents were convinced in what they were saying — that the boy was feckless and useless?

Absolutely. I liked this very much, because I think it’s part of life. It’s very real.

Where did you film “Black Peter”?

In Kolyn, which is a small town about 50 km. from Prague.

MILOS FORMAN

With a very small crew . . .

Yes, a rather small one. When you are doing your first film, nobody knows you and they just leave you alone. When completed, was it liked by the authorities in the Czechoslovak film industry?

you don’t have a choice about who you are going to look at. In this case, however, I enjoyed it very much.

Was the actress, Hana Brejchova, still your sister-in-law at this stage?

No, I was already divorced for the first time.

I was fortunate in that my films But she was a non-professional were considered comedies. All actress. Did you have any problems authority-m inded people sub­ with her during these scenes? consciously think that what you laugh at you don’t take seriously Well, she was my sister-in-law.

— which is also, unfortunately, true She co u ld n ’t com plain. No? of film critics. They never consider (laughter). You don’t talk to her as comedy as an art; comedy is always an actress, you talk to her as a something passed over lightly. But relative. You can’t say: “ Listen, it saved me a lot of trouble in don’t give me this bullshit.” One Czechoslovakia. I had much less has to be diplomatic. than Nemec or Chytilova.

Are you diplomatic?

Did they think you were being less Of course la m — every director subversive? is. You are dealing with over­ Well, it’s not a question of who sensitive people, and though they was less or more. We were on the are all different, you have to make same platform, and they got much them work together. more shit than I did because my films were comedies.

Do you find actors boring?

Were the films successful at the box-office in Czechoslovakia?

Black Peter was a modest success, while Loves of a Blonde was one of the greatest financial successes of all time. “ Loves of a Blonde” introduced a new element — a certain amount of sex and nudity — which though quite modest by today’s standards, was daring by the standards of 1964­ 65. Why did you choose to have those nude scenes?

Well, I sort of like nudity, (chuckle). I wouldn’t go to a nudist camp — it’s a little too cold — because you see it all the time and

in people is one of the most impor­ it’s a different story — but I don’t tant values. speculate about it. I am trying to do my best ’and do it honestly, so I So in fact, “ One Flew Over The guess it has to have something in Cuckoo’s Nest” is not as different common. You can’t betray yourself from your earlier films as one might unless you want to. think. In those, you dealt basically with the generation gap — children One noticeable thing you do as a vs parents — whereas “ One Flew filmmaker — and you have done if Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” is about in all your films — is to make an childlike people vs authority. . . audience laugh, then abruptly stop them. You make them realize that •Well, you know, it’s up to you to what they’re laughing at has very analyse films. I just don’t like to. serious, and even tragic, implica­ tions. For example, the last scene of Are you surprised when you hear “ Loves of a Blonde” ; the one where people do this? the girl watches the parents making fools of themselves in “Taking O ff’; Sure, I get surprised. I am often and the many, many scenes in “ One fascinated by the number of Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” . different explanations and analyses Why do you think you are able to you can give to one thing. I think capture these moments? that’s the way it should be. Not everybody has the same opinions For me, this has always been the and reactions to the things in life. greatest thrill — as it was for I am sure Cuckoo is different — Chaplin. I just love these moments

I have great respect for actors. I probably admire them because I, myself, couldn’t act if you killed me.

Did you want to be an actor?

Of course. Everybody wants for at least five minutes in his life to be an actor and for some this desire lasts a lifetime.

Do you regard actors as children?

I think that everybody has a child in himself because childhood is a very, very sensitive period of time when you meet things for the first time. Your reactions are not yet abused. I consider that childishness

Forman has said that he is only interested in making films about the young and the old because the middle-aged can look after themselves. The beauty-contest winner in Firemen’s Ball.

Top: Though starting as a film about the generation gap as seen by the children, Forman changed direction mid-way and made the parents the central characters. Buck Henry (left), Audra Lindley and Vincent Schiavelli. Taking Off. Above: Holding a winning ticket is no guarantee to collecting the prize. Searching for the lost tombola in Firemen’s Ball.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 13

MILOS FORMAN

“ Several doctors, even very progressive ones, told me that shock therapy is the only way, in certain cases of severe, manic depression, to improve the state of the patient.” Louise Fletcher and Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

No. I like Nemec very much and I admire him. He is now in Ger­ many doing some film for television — a film about his own death. One day I received a letter in which he asked me: “ Would you be so kind as to shoot for me some real big names throwing flowers on my grave, just one take. Can you get Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Bedford and Barbara Strei­ sand for it?” “ Linnea Heacock was a very, very special girl. She was kind, nice, did everything perfect­ ly — but she was not impressed.” Taking Off. Top: “ I took every actor and pointed to a patient whom I had chosen, and told the actor: ‘Follow this guy . . . observe the way he walks, talks . . . the way his illness shows’.”

Sydney Lassick and Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

because they reflect the reality of our life, and somehow helps us get through it. It is very cathartic.

Unless you have the capacity to see the funny side of your own problems and troubles, you are in big trouble.

I was always thrilled when a film did this to me, and I guess that made me want to do the same things.

Do you ever consider yourself a cynic?

I think I am cynical in a very good way. I think that cynicism is a form of realism which is necessary to maintain a healthy balance — it stops you becoming an asshole. Do you know what I mean? This is slightly different from being cynical to the outside world. It is very im­ portant to be cynical to yourself, though the word “cynical” has so many connotations that I would rather say “ ironic” .

Were you surprised when “Black Peter” and “Loves of a Blonde” were accepted and widely shown in the West?

Yes. I knew that I was doing something for the group of people I knew, but I was happily surprised to find out that its very universal themes were being understood everywhere.

You must realize that I had never been outside Czechoslovakia. I left for the first time in 1958, for the 14 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Brussels Fair, but I was already 26 years-old and I didn’t know an y th in g ab o u t th e o u tsid e countries.

Your success gave enormous en­ couragement to other Czech film­ makers — Menzel, Passer, Nemec and so on. Then at the height of this Czech New Wave, the invasion oc­ curred. Were you in Czechoslovakia when this happened?

No, I had already made a con­ tract with Paramount to do a film in the U.S. My decision to go there was not at all political, it was just the realization of a certain dream. I admired so many American and Hollywood films, that for me to have a chance to go to Hollywood and try by myself, was a dream.

Did you do it?

Well it took me about a week to Figure out how to answer his request without making him feel bad.

That’s not the way things work in the U.S. Skolimowski said that he found it very difficult to work outside Poland because, as a Pole, he was very deeply part of the Polish culture and tradition and he missed hearing the Polish language spoken.

Have you ever felt like that, or do you feel that, as a Czech, you are more international?

Language is a big problem and I spend a lot of energy trying to han­ dle it. Our thinking, the way our brain works, is more linked to the language than we realize.

Do you mean visually as well?

Our thinking is likened to words and language. We regard thinking as something abstract, but it’s not You never went back after the in­ — it’s concrete. You think with vasion? words, not abstract visions.

No, I went back three times to visit my wife and children there, but only when I was sure I could get out again — I wanted to work in the U.S. But when the political situa­ tion changed, and I was not sure th at I would be allowed out anymore, I left permanently. I was there still, however, in the beginn­ ing of 1971.

Apart from Ivan Passer, whom you presumably see in the U.S., do you still keep in touch with Menzel, Nemec and the other Czech film­ makers you worked with?

With “Taking O ff’, you were working in another language for the first time. Was it a very difficult time?

It was tough. We were shooting in New York and consequently working only five days a week. On Friday evenings I’d go to bed and wake on Sunday afternoons. This was because I was constantly translating everything from English to Czech, and back to English. Of course I was very fortunate that I worked with very, very literate peo­ ple like Buck Henry, who is a star

of the film and a writer himself. He was the man on whom I relied to make sure that nothing offensive to British or American ears would appear in the film.

Did he contribute anything to the script?

Only with the improvisations — he was very good at them.

You also managed again to choose a brilliant supporting cast — people like Allen Garfield, Vincent Schiavelli and Paul Benedict. Who did the casting for the film?

I did. I had everybody in my mind prior to shooting, except Audra Lindley whom I found through a casting call. She played Paul Benedict’s wife. I had Linnea Heacock, who played the young girl, a long time before I started shooting, when the project was still with Paramount. I found her in Central Park at the fountains.

She was a very, very special girl.

She was not at all impressed about being in the film, but she was wonderful. She was kind, nice, did everything perfectly, but she was not impressed.

With “Taking O ff’, you seem to have made a Czech film in the U.S____ I thought I was doing a very American film, but everyone told me: “ How wonderful, you have made a Czech film in America.”

Were you sorry to hear that?

No, I wasn’t.

In “Taking O ff’ you have used some ideas from your earlier Czech films. For example, your film, “Audition”, must have been the in­ spiration for the audition in “Taking O ff’. Similarly, there is a line in “Black Peter” where the father, complaining about his son having bought a guitar, says something like: “You can’t live by music.” — a point also made at the end of “Tak­ ing O ff’ . . .

Continued on P. 86.

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST a cultural interpretation Ian Hunter " . . . the sense fo r tragedy increases and possibilities residing in the culture and reduces decreases with sensuality.” — Nietzsche. them to the limited functions necessitated by the technological transformation of nature into I commodities. The only desires we can actualize The emotions are rejected by scientists are those we allow to be taken up by forms of ac­ because they are a form of direct experience out­ tuality provided by this organization of society. side the dualist theory-facts method. They are To this degree, as the film suggests, we are in­ sought after by artists and critics for more or stitutionalized; waiting for our lives to be less the same reason. Editorialists in mass dailies ordered and made real by a set of socialsuspect the emotions because they want to be on relations which we look on as the form of the side of “ reason” and because the emotions aspiration, but which are, in fact, its negation. are a form of experience much closer to action So we look for forms of life outside the present than ideas are. One of the problems with this organization of society. Jack Nicholson’s cultural isolation of the emotions from rationali­ R. P. MacMurphy embodies the film’s search ty is that, while it satisfies the mystical-oral need for such a form.

Jack Nicholson’s characterizations stand in for direct union with the world and our bodies through action, it places such experience and ac­ that tradition crystallized by Brando, Kazan and tion beyond the conscious will. This tends to James Dean in the 1950s. The popularity of the make our emotional lives random and spon­ alienated, inarticulate loner has been com­ taneous (which we have learned to like), but also mented on often enough. What hasn’t been made prone to co-option and domination by forms plain is that the attraction and power of this of experience which limit and distort the poten­ character depends on the feeling that society tialities of the will and ideas. This aspect of our has lost its capacity for conscious improvement and progress. The righteousness of the “beat” emotional lives I will call fantasy.

The rationalist version of “ideas” works hand era springs from the Romantic-Christian feeling in glove with this tendency, of course, by that those who get most kicked around, “ know” isolating our power to analyse experience from most about oppression and have the highest our ability to “ feel” and enact it. Art is the only moral worth. (A feeling also central to homosex­ form of life open to us where ideas are grasped ual dignity and to old Marxist views of the through transformation of the world and where working-class.)

The elevation of a character who is both anti­ emotions enter the conscious-moral realm by social and inarticulate reveals a popular belief shedding fantasy. Clearly then, criticism and art, that all intellectualized articulations of social and the articulate emotions they form, should be part of the act of transforming experience. Here reform are useless. This belief is part of the neo­ I am not talking about political change and Marxist idea that all desires expressed in the revolutionary art. The sort of transformation art theoretical or sensory forms of contemporary should be part of is of a more total sort, but one, reality are functionalized and neutered. So a nonetheless, with very concrete political im­ kind of resistance is mounted by retreat to the plications. All fantasies are political. By looking instinctual level, that street-corner of the soul hidden concepts of masculinity loiter in at Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I where the company of “ primitive” sexuality and want to try and see why art and the emotions aren’t generating the sort of actual transforma­ aggression. Just as Marcuse himself resorts to the instinctual level, occasionally, in search of tion they go on promising. the ultimate source of social resistance.

Non-conform ity in films like On the II Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire is ex­ We actively pursue some sorts of sadness and pressed through brute, male pride in the in­ suffering during the enactment of certain stincts, contrasted with the female embodiment emotional forms that put us at rest in the world of social virtue and wisdom. Those moments in in which we find ourselves. Another sort comes these films when Brando forces women to sub­ with understanding the gap between the con­ mit to his violent sexuality are disguised crete, historical form of the world (of which moments of social rebellion. They also gratify these emotional forms are a part) and the forms that Victorian emotional form which sees men of its future. This is always mixed with rage. as the caretakers of the animal instincts and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a sadden­ women as guardians of virtue and social conven­ ing film, but we must question whether it is tion. These luscious moments of conquest and moving, because its sadness is the sort that surrender are the point at which inarticulate, leaves you ecstatically drained — painfully powerless non-conformism is sublimated from satisfied by the idea of life as a collection of lost the level of actual social resistance and is re-born possibilities, its only affirmations desperate and as gratification of socio-sexual conquest fan­ paradoxical. Our consciousness of experience as tasies.

The instinctual level is the level of our being human action is cut away and lumbers off across the border into the ghostly exile of the emotions. where forms of life enacted in the historical The film is a genuine attempt to confront culture appear as “natural” . (So, Marcuse sees reality, and shows us a horror at the centre of the the will to freedom as “biological” .) That is, we way we have organized things; but in mustering can no longer experience these forms as ideas or the courage to confront this horror the film as moral imperatives, but simply as the un­ presents us with a dilemma. The nature of social spoken nature of reality and our emotions — as reality is such that it takes the sum of human “feelings” . Fantasy is our main experience of the

instinctual. The particular form of man-woman relationship we are looking at here is a fantasy, even when it is being enacted by consenting adults. It is a fantasy because it caricatures the other possibilities for this relationship and because history has already functionally equaliz­ ed men and women at the level of social ac­ tuality, even if the culture hasn’t adequately responded to this change. By expressing the need for resistance and the disillusion with reform from within society in these instinctual forms, this tradition has channelled resistance away from action and into fantasy, into that area of being where the uncontrollable domination of social-relations is directly experienced in “per­ sonal” forms — an area we must immediately contrast with the imagination which names our efforts to know and transform the present in the light of its future possibilities.

The desire to confront the institutionalizing function of contemporary reality is very strong in Cuckoo’s Nest. The film’s need for resistance, as seen in MacMurphy’s attempt to tear the marble plumbing fixtures off at the roots, is huge. But by mustering the courage to resist, and the tendency to action from the contemporary instinctualist tradition, the film continually transforms this will to resist into fantasy triumph and gratification. This is the film’s dilemma, and the dilemma of much radical pop­ ular art — like Dylan’s Hurricane and Joey, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, and Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces.

Acceptance of Nicholson’s irrepressible male cockiness and gut individuality at face value (and Ashby’s Last Detail shows it need not be accepted in this way) forces us into seeing the other main parts of the film from within the in­ stinctualist cultural network. So the system becomes the abstract enemy of individuality, the other patients men who have lost their instinc­ tual essence to the system, women mere objects for the release of instinctual energy, and Nurse Ratchet becomes that familiar fusion of woman and system which makes fucking or fighting a substitute for resistance.

This network works to undermine the film’s major insight — that the patients are actively sustaining, almost conniving in their own in­ stitutionalization. It abstracts the institution from its inmates and embodies it in Nurse Ratchet and her assistant who are continually inviting us to murder or rape them to free everybody, including themselves. Our sense of Nurse Ratchet as the mediator of an imprison­ ing rationality that we all share in, is continually overwhelmed by the image of the frustrated, scientific witch who steals your manly essence and puts it in cold, sterilized bottles. Her destruction of Billie, just as MacMurphy is about to free him through the instincts, fixes her in this image. Finally, the film tells us nothing about how the social and theoretical structures we create become objectified and how they func­ tionalize the lives of their creators. It leaves us with no way out but the unleashing of the in­ stincts and an escape into uncontrollable and humiliating fantasy.

Continued on P.87 Cinema Papers, June-July — 15

M AN U FAC TU R ER S * D IS T R IB U T O R S

SYNCHRONISED SPEAKING PICTURES FEATURE FILMS, EDUCATIONAL, INDUSTRIAL SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTIONS.

by Ian C. Griggs Several months ago, during a sell-out at an antique shop in Windsor, NSW, collector Malcolm MacDonald purchased an old trunk for $3, quite unaware that within it lay remarkable relics of early sound-on-film ex­ periments, and more particularly, evidence of De Forest’s work in Australia. >The films Mr MacDonald brought to me for identification were five reels of original De Forest Phonofilms in virtually mint condition.

From the edge markings the films were dated at 1925, which suggested that the films came from the period of De Forest’s demonstrations in Britain, New Zealand and Australia, and that they were among the earliest sound films in ex­ istence.

BACKGROUND TO THE PHONOFILM SYSTEM

which was far superior to the high frequency gas discharge lamps he had been using with poor results. Ironically, De Forest’s work with amplification valves was at the same time aiding the phonograph record — his very opposition. In 1922, sound-on-disc was far superior to soundon-film, and later developments with amplifica­ tion resulted in Warner Brothers’ death-knell to the silents, The Jazz Singer (October 6, 1927), which was, of course, on discs.

The cameras used were mainly Bells, with the patent De Forest recording head at the rear. Ap­ parently for mechanical reason only, De Forest adopted a picture-leading-sound system separated by 20 frames and, though Fox-Case later reversed this procedure, they retained the separation which then became standard. The ac­ tual width of a sound track was .0015 inch by .1 inch, which gave a track of remarkable clarity and strength of signal, although this has only recently become apparent by the showing of their original films on modern sound equipment.

SUCCESS AT LAST

Sound-on-film reproduction was not new when Dr Lee De Forest announced, on April 22 1922, that he had “ perfected talking pictures” .

In fact, Eugene A. Lauste’s system of 1918 (first patented in 1906) also used standard 35mm film — half of which was occupied by a variable area soundtrack.* De Forest began specializing in the develop­ ment of sound films around 1918, having previously gained world-wide recognition for his work with radio and especially the triode thermonic valve which he patented as the “Audion” in 1907.

In 1917, Theodore W. Case and Earl I. Sponable’s research laboratory at Auburn, New York, perfected an improved photo-electric cell, using thallium oxy-sulphide instead of selenium.

And it was this cell that made it possible for De Forest’s experiments to proceed to a stage where he was able, in April 1922, to offer the now famous remark: “ I well remember the grim satisfaction I felt when, for the first time in reproducing a photographic record of my voice, I was able to clearly determine whether or not it was being run backwards.” Later that year, Case and Sponable came up with a further aid to De Forest’s work, the Aeolight recording lamp,

Such was De Forest’s success with his experiments, that in March 1923 the De Forest Phonofilm Company was formed and embarked upon the production of “synchronized speaking pictures” for the commercial market.

The first public exhibition occurred at the Rivoli Theatre, New York, on April 15, 1923 and consisted mainly of musical items — in­ cluding Gavotte and Serenade. From that point, the company continued to make short subjects, including items of a newsreel nature. An item featuring President Coolidge was later used ex­ tensively as a promotional film, much to the concern of the U.S. Government which ordered an enquiry into its use.

Senators, opera singers, poets and music hall artists all appeared, and by November 1925, De Forest had added to his Phonofilm library such artists as Eddie Cantor, Weber and Fields, Sissle and Blake, Balieff and his Chauve-Souris, Ray­ mond Hitchcock, Eva Puck and Sammy White, the Ben Bernie, Ray Miller and Paul Specht bands, numerous opera singers including Marie Rappold, who earlier featured on Edison Purple “Celebrity” cylinders, and poets, including George Bernard Shaw. The popular A1 Jolson, who only the previous year had been paid $15,­ *His camera employed a “string galvanometer” light 000 for two sides of a Brunswick 10 inch 78, modulator, with an arc light for illumination. Reproduction was by means of a selenium cell, as the only means of made a short Phonofilm, for which he was paid

amplification available to Lauste was a magnetic telephone receiver-carbon microphone combination which shared a common diaphragm. (The triode thermionic valve invented in 1906, and the primitive experimental amplifiers developed in research laboratories, were not yet at those inventors’ dis­ posal.) The receiver was connected in series with a battery and the selenium cell, while the carbon microphone produced an amplified version of the fluctuating selenium cell current in a similar series circuit, consisting of a loud-speaking telephone receiver and a second battery.

Opposite: The Radio Franks — tenor and piano-playing baritone. Printed from the surviving frames found in trunk.

$

10, 000.

The first sound drama, Love’s Old Sweet Song, appeared in 1924. The star, Una Merkel, recalls the film in a recent interview: “ I had answered an ad in the papers for an new invention, and it was talking pictures. They had everybody doing things; some people sang — everyone that applied did something. I went

to the studio but as I couldn’t do a thing, I recited a poem I had written. Anyway, they chose me to play in a one-reel picture and I went home and told my father: ‘You know, I’ve done something today, with the voice right on the film. There’s no talking machine attached to it, nothing’. My father then took that invention to Canada and raised $250,000 for De Forest.

However, neither he nor my father had an ounce of business sense, and they lost the rights to the talking picture. But the film, Love’s Old Sweet Song, was the first one to be made, even before Warners ever made a talking picture.”

THE COMPANY BRANCHES OUT Only two weeks after the Rivoli premiere, Lee De Forest sailed to Europe on a promotional tour, taking a selection of his shorts and the basic equipment. He returned amazed at de­ velopments with radio in Germany and with news of the talking pictures invented by two Danish engineers. About this time, television was rearing its ugly head and several systems in the U.S. and Britain were being developed.

It appears that shortly after the British divi­ sion of the company was set up, the company sent its Australian-born representative, C. F. Elwell, to New Zealand, where, in December 1924, he exhibited the Phonofilm for the Royal Society of Arts. The Guardian reported a successful demonstration of perfect synchroniza­ tion of sight and sound: “ Having solved the problem of fitting the human voice to the film, movies that speak are now an actuality.” Rights to the use of the system were then sold to Mr W. P. Kirkwood, well-known New Zealand dis­ tributor and exhibitor, who, -on February 17, 1925, at the Strathford Picture Theatre, gave a fuller demonstration for the benefit of the Press.

Once again, reports were good: “ . . . the voices of the speakers, the musical and instru­ mental items and dances to special music being faithfully reproduced. Indeed the reproduction of the sound vibrants was so clear that one could have imagined the speakers and musicians were actually performing on the stage.” Meanwhile, C. F. Elwell had returned to Britain in order to exhibit the films before the Kinematograph Group of the Royal Photographic Society, an event which coincidentally took place the same day as the Strathford showing. The audience was “charmed at the exhibition and clarity of audition . . but the overall ignorance of the technicalities of the system can be shown by the reaction of one man who thought that if you speeded up the camera, or projector, then the sound would get louder, or softer, as the case may be. Similarly, he suggested that the reas­ on President Coolidge’s voice was louder than Cinema Papers, June-July — 17

DE FOREST PHONOFILMS

THE DE FOREST PHONOHLM SYSTEM

The Bell camera which simultaneously exposed images and recorded sound.

Mechanism of the Bell camera shown at left. Note how the recording head precedes the camera gate.

Photo Hecttjc

cm

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ât& rid& fé Jhm üics^

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Projection plan for the Phonofilm system.

The projector used for exhibiting Phonofilms.

18 — Cinema Papers, June-July

a female opera star, was that she was smaller in In the statement, Capt. Hawkins mentioned scale on the screen. Elwell hastened to explain that a projectionist could learn all he would need that the taking and projecting speeds must be to know in 24 hours, and added: identical, and that the difference of volume was “The Company is prepared to offer showmen dependent on distance and the choice of service on the following lines: microphone.

(1) The exclusive rights for Phonofilms will be sold under a contract system, covering AUSTRALIA a period, to only one showman in each dis­ trict or town.

Retired Army captain Stanley W. Hawkins, (2) This Company will install the necessary an Australian, set up a branch ,of the Phonofilm apparatus at its own expense, and during Company in Sydney in June 1925, introducing the term of contract, its expert, at no ex­ the local press to the films later that month. The pense to the showman, will keep in cons­ Bulletin reported that “the system’s chief tant touch to instruct a new operator to do usefulness will probably be in the educational anything that may be required of him. sphere to begin with” , and although generally (3) Under the contract also, this Company happy with the event, the writer added: will supply to the showman, at no extra expense to him, a regular program of “ . . . however the speakers belong to a nation that suffers from the American accent. During Phonofilm, varying from 1000 to 2000 ft., or more, as the case may be, and will the screening of a portion of Traviata, this writer do this bi-weekly or tri-weekly, as may be momentarily got the illusion that the image of required. the singing damsel was made of flesh and blood, but it wasn’t sufficient of an illusion to make (4) Following the signing of the contract, the him want to rush round to the stage door with a apparatus will be installed in the various box of chocolates and a taxi . . .” . Once again, districts in the order in which the con­ the presentation of perfect lip-sync gained praise tracts were made.”

On April 4, 1927, some of the Phonofilms and congratulation.

It was not till November 1926, that the recently obtained from overseas were screened Australian division had expanded to such pro­ at the studio for members of the Press, local portions that it could set up a plant and begin Chambers of Commerce and others. This time, public demonstrations at Sydney’s Prince reported the Sydney Morning Herald, “ . . . the Edward Theatre. Here, a season of the films ran voices ring out with as much clarity as they from November 6 till November 9 — the would on the best type of gramophone first exhibition of the company’s talking pictures record . . .” . The writer then went on to say that in an Australian theatre. The general public was Sir William Joynson-Hicks, in a speech on the amazed at the invention, but the Bulletin still General Strike, “ . . . came to the ear with criticized the American accent, remarking that amazing truth to nature, synchronizing so perfectly with the facial expressions and the voices were “ muffled” .

Capt. Hawkins announced in January 1927, gestures, that the Home Secretary in the flesh that he had had numerous enquiries from local could not have made a much stronger im­ exhibitors regarding the installation of plants in pression.” Also appreciated was the lack of their cinemas, but he could not release the uni­ titles, although it appears De Forest should have que attraction until he had sufficient stock from used stereophonic sound to please the Sydney England and America to maintain continuously critic who commented on the problem of localization of the voices on a big screen! full programs.

Although at this time, more than 50 British In the meantime, all the gear necessary to ac­ tually produce Phonofilms was en route to and 100 U.S. cinemas were equipped with Australia by ship — Bell & Howell Phonofilm Phonofilm apparatus, the Australians were less cameras, microphones, mixing panels and inclined to give it a go, for, besides the Prince amplifiers — all of which arrived in time to cap­ Edward demonstrations of 1926, the only other ture, in sound, the arrival of the Duke and known takers were the Lyceum in 1927, the Duchess of York at Sydney, on Saturday, Melbourne Majestic, with its six-week season from July 23 to September 10, 1927, and a March 26, 1927. lone suburban exhibitor, Harold V. Hoskins signed up his Lindfield Theatre for a 12STUDIOS AT RUSHCUTTERS who month contract. Unfortunately, no details exist BAY of Hoskins’ programs, although those of the Melbourne Majestic included President The company’s head office was at 129 Coolidge’s speech, Colonel Lindbergh, The Bathurst St., and the conversion of the old cable- Radio Franks singing Hoorah for Radio, a short tram sheds at Rushcutters Bay into a entitled Jazz versus Opera, Dick Henderson with sound studio meant that, at last, production Straight Bananas and Club Alabama, a saxo­ could be commenced, and distribution of films, phone sextet (!) performing Hoak and as well as proper demonstrations, was possible Liebestraum, and an unidentified singer render­ ing Mighty Like a Rose. Of these, the Radio at a higher level.

The arrival of the Duke of York was the first Franks (Messrs Wright and Bessinger, tenor and actuality film shot, the sound being recorded by baritone) came to light in the trunk found at a land-line to the studios. On the Sunday, the Windsor.

The Melbourne Argus of July 23, 1927, sound cameras recorded the children’s welcome to the Duke, and the Renown Band performing reported inter alia, that “ . . . in every case, the in his honour at Taronga Park Zoo. The com­ sound synchronized exactly with the corres­ pleted films were shown to the Press at the new ponding actions. Some sounds were too faint studios the following week, and were very well and others were distorted, but the trouble received. Favourable comments were made on appeared to be principally due to the loud­ the unique atmosphere evoked by the actuality speakers used to reproduce the sound. At times films; the speeches, cheering of the crowds, and the volume and pitch varied, but that, too, the general effects gave an apparition never appeared to be due to altered adjustment on the speakers.” before achieved with the silent newsreel.

The Minister for Trades and Customs, Mr H. We must remember that at this time, there E. Pratten, opened the new studios on April 6, were no perforated screens and at the Prince and the company issued a simultaneous policy Edward in Sydney, for example, several loud­ announcement offering the system to any in­ speakers were placed on the stage, with one each side of the front stalls for reinforcement. terested local exhibitors.

Right: Top four frames are from Thomas Bentley’s The Antidote; the remaining frames from It’s Love Again with Brooks John and Goodie Montgomery.

20 — Cinema Papers, June-July

THE CANBERRA FIASCO On May 9, 1927, the Duke of York opened Federal Parliament at the new Parliament House in Canberra. De Forest, having seen the possibilities of recording this historic event in sound, sought official permission and cabled the U.S. for more equipment, paying more than $1600 in overtime just to have the machines ready in time. Captain Hawkins purchased a truck to transport the plant to Canberra and was virtually on his way when, less than a week before the ceremony, Sir Bredenell White,

ARTHUR HANSEN: I was ac­ tually in film processing, mainly in the lab, but I did a bit of camera work. There was very lit­ tle production, except when the Duke of York came out here in 1927 and opened the Parliament at Canberra.

I suppose you were with them the day the Duke arrived at Sydney . ..

Y e s, I w as o n e o f th e cameramen on the procession from the landing up into Mac­ quarie St. Was it all shot with sound that day?

What they did was put the sound over la n d -lin e to a recording head at the studio. They did have sound cameras, but they shot wild that day — like they did in Canberra. They made a terrible mess of it and it was a terrible em­ barrassment. There was a long speech by the Duke, but as they didn’t shoot enough footage to cover the whole speech, they made a loop of what little footage they had, and repeated it 10 or 15 times.

How far away from the Duke was the camera?

About 50 ft.

But people wouldn’t have picked up his lips very clearly . . . ' Yes, but he brushed a fly away from his face, and this action was repeated and repeated. Finally the audience woke up, and there was a bit of a giggle.

Where was the film shown?

I think either at the Crystal Palace or the Lyceum. I know that while Harry Jones, the U.S. representative who had installed the projection outfit was here, he had a certain amount of control over it. However, as soon as he left for the U.S. the whole thing folded up — no other pro­ jectionist could handle the new­ fangled thing.

What was the main difficulty?

chairman of the Royal Tour committee, wrote stating that the application could not be con­ sidered. Deeply shocked by the decision, Hawkins nevertheless proceeded to Canberra, filming the external ceremonies silent, while the Sydney studio recorded the sound by land-line.

Included in the film, Hawkins later reported, was the singing of Nellie Melba from the steps of the House.

In letters to the Sydney Morning Herald, and in evidence given by him at the Royal Commis­ sion in July that year, Hawkins stated that the final film was offered to the King, and a furthei

Oh, the amplifiers and like.

There were no proper instructions on how to maintain the batteries and so on. It was actually a very promising thing at the time and they had achieved a reasonable amount of success with it.

How did you get involved with it in the first place?

W ell I w as w o rk in g a t Australasian Films from 1925-6 and my friend Len Jordan, who was offered the job of setting up the Rushcutters Bay outfit, asked me if I would come and work on it. So I left Australasian Films just after they finished For the Term of His Natural Life, but everything gradually crumbled away after 12 months.

Who was Hawkins?

there

besides

The American, Harry Jones — he was De Forest’s right hand man.

Did De Forest ever come out to Australia?

No, I don’t think so.

What about Mr Elwell?

I can’t recollect that name.

There was Ward, the sound man, and Mill, the operator who later carried out some experiments on improving the sound — like changing the type of track from variable density to variable area.

As I remember, he actually branched out himself after the whole thing folded, and set up a sound outfit.

What did you think of the system itself?

I thought it had a very good chance of success because Fox came out with practically the same thing.

Why did De Forest use the system of sound following picture, instead of sound preceding picture as it does today?

The camera was built in such a way that he had to have it the other way around. The Photion

copy to the Australian Archives (no copy exists in either country), but that “ . . . we did not get a perfect phonofilm, due to the broadcasting arrangements breaking down on several oc­ casions . . .” .

Two people who were very closely involved with De Forest’s work in Australia were Arthur Hansen and Len Jordon, both formerly of Australasian Films. I recently interviewed both these gentlemen and gained first-hand informa­ tion on their work with the company — and the Canberra ceremony in particular:

glowlamp he used was set at the back of the camera — De Forest’s invention. It wasn’t like the Movietone system with its lightvalve system.

What films did they make out here besides the Duke of York and the Band at the Zoo? There wasn’t much shot at all.

They just used to concentrate on showing stuff sent out from Britain and the U.S. There were a lot of shorts.

How was the sound in the theatre?

Well by today’s standard it was pretty woolly, but it was such a staggering invention — perfect synchronization. But this faded out and they brought in the discs, which had terrible trouble with sync. They Phonofilms were the first sound film s shown in Australian theatres and to me it was a great shame to see them overpowered by the discs and Fox. Perhaps the main thing against them was the amplification.

What happened to Hawkins?

Ha, I believe he Finished up in an asylum. I heard he lived up the mountains for quite a while, but then the information about him becomes very nebulous.

What did you think of the “Jazz Singer”?

tative arrived at the studio and asked if I would like to come and work for them. I said: “ Well they don’t pay me much here, so if I get a decent wage I’d prefer to go somewhere else.” But we hadn’t finished The Term, so I told Capt.

Hawkins that I couldn’t leave those people while they’re in the middle of the picture, and that he’d have to wait. He said he’d arrange it and he got in touch with them. As a result, Australasian Films agreed to pay me the same wage as De Forest during that time, which was a big change from what I had been getting. So Arthur went over a few weeks before me and shot the film of the Duke of York arriving.

What did you know about talk­ ing pictures at that stage?

Nothing. I hadn’t even seen any of their demonstrations.

What was the first work you did for De Forest?

Mainly lab work. Arthur was also doing lab work, as well as camera. Later, I went over with them to the studios, though I don’t remember much about them. I can’t even remember whether it had proper sound­ proofing.

What did the public think of the talking pictures? Did they make much while they were here?

The following day I interviewed 87 year-old Len Jordan at his Turramurra home:

I don’t know what the public thought. They didn’t make very much at all, but they made a bit of a mess-up on the Canberra thing.

The Duke of York stuttered, you see, and Hawkins said they couldn’t take a picture of him because of this. Then one of the fellows suggested that the Duke could be imitated. So, they did just that and it was a flop. Well, when I saw it at the theatre, I thought it was a regular laugh.

They had tried to synchronize the speech with the start of the film, but it didn’t work and the Duke’s lips would be moving with no sound, and then when he was still, the sound would burst out. Awful!

LEN JORDAN: One day, early in 1927, the De Forest represen­

Continued on P. 91

I was very disappointed because it only had a very small amount of dicey, synchronized sound. But it was the awakening and audiences sort of fastened on to the way in which it was produced—bringing in the song numbers like that and so on. I remember the very first sound-on-film that I saw — In Old Arizona with Warner Baxter.

It was a Fox-Movietone produc­ tion and showed at the Regent.

They started a few Laurel and Hardys after that.

Out of the woodwork M ax Lemon is one of Australia’s most experienced editors tical printer at Supreme, a Sydney film laboratory. Lemon, — certainly in the field of 35mm features where he has cut however, reverted to editing and became a prolific cutter of “ Between W ars” , “ Picnic at Hanging Rock” and “ Let the television dramas, shorts and commercials. Then came M ike Balloon Go” .

Thornhill’s “ Between Wars” , a film notable for giving many Lemon’s first venture into filmmaking was an acting role in now successful technicians their first feature chance — Russell Charles Chauvel’s “ Sons of M athew” , at the age of 12. Then, Boyd and M ax Lemon, for example. on leaving school in 1951, Lemon joined the Shell Film Unit un­ When Vince O ’Donnell, the Film, Radio and Television der documentary director, John Heyer. Working as an all­ Board film consultant, interviewed him, Lemon had just com­ round editorial assistant, Lemon spent most of his appren­ pleted cutting “ Let the Balloon Go” for Film Australia. They ticeship laying and looping optical sound tracks, though he also began by discussing Lemon’s relationship with director Peter worked on the now legendary, “ Back of Beyond” .

Weir on “ Picnic at Hanging Rock”.

Five years later, Lemon left Shell to take charge of the op­ Did you know much about Peter, or his approach to films, before you came to “Picnic”?

Not really, though we had done a little work together on the trailer for The Cars that Ate Paris. Wayne Le Clos, who edited Cars, was out of town at the time and as they had to get it done quickly, they got me.

It may have been because of this that I got asked to do Picnic.

I could see the potential in the screenplay but as to how Peter was going to treat it, I was in the dark.

The only thing I had ever seen of Peter’s was Cars and this was, even in the screenplay, a terribly different sort of film. So I wasn’t quite sure what he was going to come up with.

Did that bother you as an editor?

No. I can only work with what material I am handed. In fact, I prefer not to go in with any preconceived ideas. I evaluate what I see in the rushes and work from there.

You actually cut the film in S.A., didn’t you?

Yes, in the SAFC studios in Adelaide. As the crew was shooting in Victoria, they were seeing the rushes silent — straight from the lab. They were then sent to me in Adelaide and we’d sync them up, since the SAFC was doing all the transfers. If the crew wanted to see them again for any reason, I’d send

them back — otherwise we just pressed ahead. But from the first batch of rushes a mood immediate­ ly established itself and I could see and feel what sort of film Peter was going to make.

Surprisingly enough, right through the period when they were shooting in Adelaide, Peter and I didn’t get together and discuss the film at all — apart from any ob­ vious comments made during rushes. He just left it for me to get stuck into because he was, at that stage and time of day, pretty well wrung out. And who, after a day’s shooting, wants to sit down for a couple of hours and theorize.

Did Peter plan his shooting in such a way as to enable you to work

off a marked-up script?

In terms of the ascent of the Rock by the girls, for instance, the script was detailed enough, though there were certainly areas where Peter partially ignored the script and was led by what I suspect was the aura of the Rock itself.

So in that example, you followed the ideas that were coming out of the photography?

Yes, and surprisingly enough, nothing I did in Peter’s absence was on the wrong tangent. Whether this was luck or good management, it’s hard to say.

The Rock was on their side . ..

Cinema Papers, June-July — 21

MAX LEMON

Back of Beyond which Lemon worked on while at the Shell Film Unit.

Malcolm Arkaringa, a native of the Birdsville Track area. .

Patricia Leahy (right), as Marguerite, protests the New Guard’s disruption of a fishermanfarmers co-operative picnic. Between Wars.

Well, the Rock started to exert itself upon those who just saw rushes, regardless of whether they had seen the Rock. I never saw the Rock and if I had, i might have been disappointed. I would rather stay with the images I preconceived during rushes.

So you worked through to a first assembly without much interference or contribution from Peter . . .

Yes, pretty much so. I think all an editor can do is make the best use of the material he is given, and that is what I try to do in the first cut. Then we knock it around and if somebody has got suggestions on how to make it better, I go off on my little own and plough back into the thing. I don’t know if they necessarily like that, or whether they would prefer to be sitting over my shoulder, but it is not happening that way. Whether they are forcing themselves to stay away, or whether they’re happy to have a breather, I don’t know.

I think there are advantages in doing it this way, and if I thought I could see something better than what the director preconceived, I would do it my way — as any editor should. We can always go back to his way if he feels it doesn’t work, but this way there is an opportunity to see all the alternatives and weigh them up.

It also gives the director an op­ portunity to go away and get his thoughts together after the five to six weeks of mental and physical torture of getting the stuff on to film.

Then he can come in fresh, and with the hang-ups from the day on the set that it rained etc washed out of his mind. He can look at the thing realistically and freshly.

“If I thought I could see something better than what the director preconceived, I would do it my way — as any editor should.” Picnic at Hanging Rock.

From there we had to see what areas weren’t working and we progressively got it down to the form that it is in now, which is just on two hours. Some people will say it is long, but I think the mood of the film calls for that, and if you pace it up too much, the thing would fall apart in certain places.

It’s not just the aura that the Rock had, but that the school had and the people in the school.

My first cuts are not assemblies, How long was your firs t they’re cuts and, consequently, take assembly? a bit longer than some other Well, it was tight in the dialogue people’s. I like to feel that my first areas but a little loose in the at­ cut is pretty much there, particular­ Who had the final cut, on “Pic­ mospheric. It was 15 very full reels ly in the dialogue areas. So, and some of those would have been providing everyone is happy with nic”, for example? more than a 1000 ft., so it must my construction of a scene, it is I wouldn’t know, because after have been more than 2Vi hours. only a matter of a few frame ad­ 22 — Cinema Papers, June-July

the screenings Peter would have meetings with the producers quite independent of me. Things that were thought worth trying were then relayed back to me via Peter.

Whether this was Peter’s, Pat Lovell’s, Hal and Jim McElroy’s, or John Graves’ idea, I wouldn’t know. So as to whose idea a sugges­ tion was, and who was for or against it, I had no idea.

justments. Later comes the re­ juxtaposition of scenes within the film.

I prefer to work this way because you can tell from the screen whether the scene is working or not, and you don’t have to go back and do a lot of tidying up. There are, of course, scenes that do require a lot of work afterwards, but I try to keep those down to a minimum.

Consequently, the bulk of the work is from the rushes to that first cut.

It is then a matter of whether something should stay in or not, of whether we should move scene 36 up to where 70 is, or down to where scene 45 was, etc.

In most films, this is really where you put the polish on and where you make or break a film. And it is all

MAX LEMON

Let The Balloon Go, the third feature edited by Max Lemon.

is going to interject, he only turns to B because B has interjected.’

A lot of my dialogue I treat this way. You can, however, get carried away by this method and end up on the wrong person when, for a line, you should be on the other fellow.

So before I cut a scene, I run all the slates through the Movieola, and apart from the little words and syllables or the points that I want to use, I make mental notes of the ac­ tual lines that I want to be over a particular person. I then make sure that all the things that I want to do on the way to these points, happen so that these things can happen when I want them to — without having to stay on Fred or Bill inter­ minably.

I couldn’t tell from a script where I am going to cut between shots.

Do you think it is valuable for the editor to go out to the location?

Oliver Howes’ second feature for Film Australia, Let The Balloon Go. Ray Barrett (left) as Dr McLeod, and Janet Kingsbury, Robert Betties and Ben Gabriel as the Sumner family.

relative to time. There is no sub­ stitute for time — there just aren’t any short cuts. If you are allowed 30 hours to do something, then the result on the screen is 30 hours worth; if you get 60 hours, then you’ll get 60 hours worth — which isn’t necessarily twice as good, but it is certainly going to be better.

How many weeks did “Picnic” take to cut?

religiously — but like every set of rules, occasionally you have to break them. I Find myself instinc­ tively doing cuts the way my little rules say I should, but then half way through I realize this is one time I have to break them.

In “Picnic”, you often cut away from dialogue at non-conventional points. . .

Well I don’t know if they are non-conventional or not. They’re things — like syllables — that suggest themselves as good points to cut away at. M ost of my Seemingly hundreds of people dialogue cuts are motivated by have commented on your dialogue sound, by what is being said. I’ll cut cutting style in “Picnic”. Did you to somebody because they have have a pre-determined style for started talking, not because they are about to talk. It’s exactly the handling the dialogue? same as somebody watching two No, not until I saw the rushes. people have a conversation. He When I look at rushes I get an im­ looks at A while A is talking, and pression which stays for weeks, and unless A asks a question of B, he it is this impression I try to preserve doesn’t look at B before he’s started his reply. B might interject and only through my cutting.

I wouldn’t call it style, but a then will he turn his attention to B, system or theory I try to follow but he doesn’t turn to B because B

I started in February and it was probably early May when the First cut was out. Probably 12 weeks.

I prefer not to, because I believe you can get hung up with the hang-ups of the day — extras are late, someone has the wrong hat on, the zoom lens w on’t focus, whatever. This sticks in your mind when you are watching rushes, and you think the shot doesn’t work because of those damned reflec­ tions. If I was there when it was be­ ing shot, I’d probably fall into line with these attitudes, whereas not being involved in these day to day problems I can look at the stuff and say to myself, “Yes it is working” or “ No it’s not” , without neces­ sarily knowing the reason, or the complications involved.

Mike Thornhill had downs on the odd scene in Wars which I’m sure was only because of the problems he had on the day, and to me they were Fine. Peter had one or two similar feelings with Picnic, and regardless of how hard you might try to work these things out of their minds, they do stick. In the Final thing I don’t think these things bother them any more, but during the editing they can and this might rub off on me.

Greg Bell was sound editor on “Picnic” and again on “Let the Balloon Go”. Where, as far as you’re concerned, does his respon­ sibilities start?

They begin with the tracks I give him and finish with the Final mix, and even if I have done some dastardly things to him, he has got to Fix them up — though I try not to do this.

In Let the Balloon Go, for in­ stance, there is a Fire bell which is rung to alert the townspeople. We see it in one shot and then cut around the town as the people hear it and come running hither and thither. Some minutes later, we are back in the main street and the bell is full level again, though we have heard it off-screen all through the other shots. Now, the way I would do that to make the sound editor’s life easy would he to get a wild track of the bell and run it through all the scenes, leaving out the sync takes, just so that the bell was still in sync and its rhythm not chang­ ed when we get back to it. it started off as a dong every twelve frames, so when we come back two minutes later, the bell rings on the 12th frame. If you just cut all those scenes together with sync sound, you would probably Find the bell to be out in the Final segment. Consequently, since the image is now Final, the sound editor would have to take a frame or so out between each bell chime to create a new rhythm, one which fits the overall sequence.

I try to do those sort of things while I’m editing because I’m con­ scious of how much time is going to be wasted, and it doesn’t take me much time to do it, maybe an extra 15 minutes or something, while it might take him two hours. I’ve done sound editing myself and know the problems you can get in­ to.

You also worked as an optical printer. How has that helped you as an editor?

I find it a tremendous advantage.

For example, when you’re trying to do a visual effects scene — be it like the birds superim posed over Miranda at the gate to the Hanging Rock grounds — it is certainly an advantage to know what you can do on a printer, and the easiest ways of getting a result.

Continued on P.94 Cinema Papers, June-July — 23

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JANCSO

Few film directors have developed as distinc­ tive and original a cinematic style as Miklos Jancso. Perhaps because of this, his films have tended to attract a good deal of patronizing and dismissive criticism, in 1974, he made what to date appears his greatest Film, Elektreia. (I am leaving out Private Vices and Public Virtues, which has yet to be shown in Australia.) Gavin Millar, reviewing Elektreia in the Listener, had only this to say:

“ Man does not live by prayer alone.” Part of the strength of Red Psalm’s symbolizing intention lies in its persistent feel for simple, elemental objects.

questionable how long Jancso can go usefully on dollying back and forth out there.”

“The camera shifts and weaves restlessly in prolonged takes, the focus versatile, the close object giving place within the same shot to the distant vista on the Hungarian plain. Jancso is in peak form, this time apply­ ing his stylization to a strike of agricultural labourers and peasants in the 1890s. The workers are opposed at first rather gently and then increasingly fiercely by military forces. A case is made out rather feebly on behalf of the outmoded landowners. The faith of the church is emulated by the rebels, who substitute for psalms their own socialist ethos. Violence ensues. Yet, in his own uni­ que way, Jancso makes the entire thing vigorous and even bright.” ~

necessary to depict the actual event. He is more concerned to establish the pressures that lead people slowly, almost imperceptibly, to moments of crisis. Yet, we are used to waiting for the crunch, the explosive climax, in a kind of “ Miklos Jancso tells his version of the Electra and big bang theory of cinematic effects. These hard­ Orestes story in Elektreia (Academy Two) and those who expect anything other than horsemen, whips, dust, and ly exist for Jancso, even in a Film like Red Psalm naked maidens manoeuvring with balletic virtuosity in an which deals directly with revolution. atmosphere of great gloom on the great flat plains of Films and Filming ran a glib (and perhaps Hungary, are in for a sad disappointment. The message is even uneasy) review by Gordon Gow, in May — down with tyrants and up with freedom: a political 1973. It began like this: program that should win friends everywhere. It is

Even the use of the term “dollying” has here the suggestion of playing with dolls, apart from the insinuation of political opportunism on the part of the director. Elektreia was shown at last year’s Melbourne and Sydney festivals, but has failed to get a commercial release.

The first of Jancso’s films to be shown here, was his Fifth feature Film, The Round-Up (1965).

This was followed by The Red and the White (1967), Silence and Cry (1968), The Confronta­ tion (1968), and Winter Sirocco (1969). These Films were all made in Hungary, and feature Jancso’s unforgettable vistas of the Great Hungarian Plain. Since then, he has been dividing his year between Hungary and Italy where he has been working with the Italian television company, RAI. The best of the available Jancso Films in this country is Red Psalm, and I’d like to use this film to take up some of the points commonly made against Jancso: that his films are repetetive, boring and simplistic, and that they stress an obvious political message. It is difficult to put aside so lightly the exhilaration one feels in watching his films; it’s perhaps equally dif­ ficult to account for it. And they are certainly demanding to watch. For one thing, Jancso takes for granted the physical action that we are accustomed to, particularly on television. He is interested in the much more elusive states of mind and feeling that might arise as a conse­ quence of certain events, or even give rise to them. But he does not dwell on the events themselves.

In Silence and Cry, for example, a farmer is poisoned by two women he lives with — his wife and sister-in-law. But for Jancso, it is hardly Previous pages: Jancso’s latest film, Private Vices and Public Virtues.

26 — Cinema Paners Tnne-Tiilv

The review indicates a crass failure to under­ stand, a failure that is concealed beneath an ap­ parent brightness, even skittishness in the writing, and in a consistent patronizing of Janc­ so: the briskly worded praise, “Jancso is in peak form”, the rapid summaries — “This time applying his stylization to a strike of agricultural labourers and peasants.” And that terribly patronizing comment, “ Yet in his own unique way (whatever exactly that is) Jancso makes the entire thing vigorous and even bright.” What Gow implied is that Jansco has reduced a Film about politics (or vaguely about politics) to the level of musical comedy, and has somehow managed to pull it off.

This brief extract brings up at least three elements in Jancso’s Films, particularly in Red Psalm: the kind of symbolizing attempted through the film; the sort of relationships that are established and the levels upon which they operate (is the film, for instance, essentially about events, or about a particular conception of the events?); and the tone and rhythms of the Film. As many critics have remarked, Jancso’s Films often appear like a kind of cinematic ballet.

Red Psalm is a Finely achieved Film, coming three years before Elektreia, and indicating already Jancso’s mastery of cinema as an ex­ pressive weapon. The story itself is transparently simple, although the way it is stylized is not. We can perhaps begin to describe Jancso’s style by

looking at the ways he organizes his shooting.

Gyula Maar gives us this description of Jancso on location: “ It all starts with Jancso not knowing. He doesn’t know the angle for the take. This — according to the norms of conventional filmmaking — is an unpardonable sin; the principal way to which one recognizes a dilet­ tante.

“Why doesn’t he look at the script? He doesn’t look at it, he hasn’t the slightest intention of doing so; it’s not from that direction that he expects the solution. His im­ agination is got going by the field, he stops, he thinks, he walks on — then the result makes it evident that at such times space is set into motion in front of him. It comes alive, it inspires the building up of the movement. That’s what happens then, as seen by an outsider. The choreography of the scene comes into being suddenly with extraordinary speed — so fast that one is inclined to think that the earlier ‘I don’t know’ was merely a mannerism.

“At the moment when he hits upon the scene he orders a take. The assistant is still shouting ‘rehearsal’ — but he hastily, and not without some irony, adds: ‘Let’s take the rehearsal.’

For Jancso, as for any artist, his style deter­ mines what he can communicate; and our problem is to decide, Firstly, how most effective­ ly to describe that style, and secondly, what effects it creates in us and what these mean. This is how Gideon Bachman summarizes Jancso’s style: “These stylistic elements are: a reduction in the number of shots, a pre-montage in the camera, an in­ crease in the number of possible levels of interpretation, elimination of the obvious, and calculated interaction of the following dialectic elements:" foreground and background, sound and silences, prolongation and con­ densation of time, the logical and the illogical, the rational and the poetic. The visual cement is provided by Jancso’s extraordinary camera movements, by now his trademark, the refined orchestration of sensual impacts, causing a constant assault on our habitual lines of vision.”12

This assault is disturbing, precisely because it depends on the concentration of certain kinds of 1. ‘Jancso Shooting’, Gyula Maar, New Hungarian Quarterly, 1968.

2. ‘Jancso Plain’, Gideon Bachman, Sight and Sound, 1974.

JANCSO

Above: Jancso creates the form of the people’s need to sym­ bolize their condition, to represent themselves in relation to the forces acting upon them. Silence and Cry. Left: Miklos Jancso directing Red Psalm, his epic represen­ tation of a people's capacity to imagine the possibility of revolution.

energies. Critics have tried to identify these forces in different ways, and they have usually tried to locate them within the framework of revolutionary political activity.

Jancso’s films, then, are seen as the expression of a revolutionary intention: how do the forces line up and what are the results of the conflict?

I’d argue, though, that these films, and especial­ ly Red Psalm, represent a people’s capacity to imagine the possibility of revolution. They don’t just explain the need for revolution; a handbill might do that.

Jancso expresses in a mythic form the attempt to create a common consciousness, to recognize shared deprivation and needs, to represent the inspiration and passion necessary to the revolution. His films explore lines of continuity and tradition, although they are set within the rhetoric of sudden breaks with the past.

Red Psalm shows us a group of Hungarian peasants in revolt against specific demands from the landowners, represented by the bailiff; and more generally, against a system of feudal rule, under which land is locked into the control of a small ruling class. The peasants revolt, killing the bailiff. The landowner comes to speak with them and apparently, inexplicably dies. The military arrive and a young officer is given a revolver under apparent instructions to use it.

He refrains, and displays clear sympathies with the rebels. He is shot. The rebellion spreads, the church is fired and destroyed; and the peasants celebrate their liberation — not necessarily their freedom, but their liberation from the control of church and state.

They announce the creation of a new workers’ society, a new state, sanctioned by ideals of com­ munal living and community justice. These ideals are expressed in The Lord’s Prayer, a hymn to the socialist state. But the military return; the soldiers appear to fraternize with the people, then, on command, they withdraw and massacre them.

Jancso utilizes ritual in a number of ways throughout Red Psalm; and even more deliberately in Elektreia. At one level, ritual engages ceremonies that symbolically express conflict. So, in the opening scenes of Red Psalm, the burning of the sacks of wheat expresses for us the anger, contempt and determination of the Towards the film’s end, the workers return, bailiff, as well as a certain presumption; after all, and we watch the consecration of the rebuilt he does miscalculate the consequences. And the church, by a priest wearing a military cap; the choice of wheat to destroy in a time of scarcity, recanting of the surviving socialists and the re­ reinforces the sense of the complete and ar­ establishment of the traditional order. But the bitrary power that one class of people exercises dead peasants assemble like ghosts and it is clear over another. that their presence will effectively prevent the In a quite different, although related sense, old system starting up again. Their action has ritual refers to the rhetoric of liberation that is changed the social and political conditions of the scattered throughout the film. So, in the litanies country, and their revolution will not be stopped. and chants of the peasants, they are expressing So, the film ends with one of the women in ritual form through language, the intolerable revolutionaries shooting the agents of repression conditions of their existence and their hopes for in turn: the wife of the landlord, the military change. They are appealing to forces beyond leaders and the soldiers. They fall in silhouette, their individual strength to effect change in their like targets at a shooting gallery, and we know society. the workers’ cause has triumphed.

There are levels of verbal ritual which often That is a bare outline of a familiar, even follow moments of intense drama. Then too, p re d ic ta b le s to ry lin e ; the essen ce of there are moments of concentration which revolutionary hope, and the expression of a cer­ reflect a ritual observance. For example, tain sort of political cinema. Jancso, however, towards the end of the film, after the massacre, a has transformed this outline through his reliance soldier immerses himself in the stream which is on particular kinds of camera movements, exact slowly stained by the blood of the people. He is choreography of the players, precise timing of both sharing in their existence and death, and sequences and movements within scenes, and a cleansing himself of complicity. careful integration of dramatic and ritual perfor­ The sense of ritual in Red Psalm, then, in­ mance. The film is rich in its use of ritual forms that are subtle and persistent. Jancso is not so volves several elements. Action is formal and much using visual symbols; the effects he creates ceremonial; that is, abstracted from the irregular are less easily definable and more disturbing. and fragmentary kind of everyday activity.

For the greater part, he takes care to avoid any Jancso is attempting to discover an appropriate simple or literal attempts at symbolizing, as this means of organizing action to express its sym­ bolic quality. Further, these ritual performances description of his directing indicates: “Somlo, the cameraman, moves to and fro on the express desires and hopes that transcend any one track; he follows the scene. Jancso sits next to him on the individual. The ritual serves to create a new un­ track-car and directs movements even during shooting. ity, that of the workers themselves and their He is constantly giving directions to the performers: it combined power, which is literally the power to seems that his own rhythmical words of command like some sort of a prose-poem help him in getting the timing imagine the new society. This is essentially a right. This monologue ripened into a prose-poem is one spiritual force, quite distinct from the physical of the most decisive reasons why he doesn’t take sound resolution necessary to act together, although on location. If he did, he couldn’t talk . . . He is the con­ this determination may depend on the quality of ductor of all that happens . . . what we might call invocation or prayer.

He keeps a firm hand on the almost musically built construction and he times it well. In his eyes the greater The peasants, that is, recognize the existence sin is if the dynamics of a scene breaks off. Even now I of forces that control their daily existence, and hear him saying to Somlo: ‘The scene has completely they express this recognition in ceremonies that come to a stand-still. . . don’t you notice i t . . . let’s go on range from drinking wine together, to taking . . . you are composing on film . . . don’t compose on film . . . let’s go on . . .’ He will not tolerate this composing on oaths or laying out the produce of the fields in a film; even without that he is anyway continually afraid kind of fertility ritual. that expressionism in the usual sense of the word might One of the ways in which we can come at the appear in his work. Perhaps it is this fear that separates him most from that Eisenstein from whom he has not central tensions of Jancso’s films, is to ask what only learnt much but whose attitude, whose life-history, precisely are these forces that the peasants in­ dynamic and mass-movements are so much akin to what voke? Is it the abstract force of history itself? he is after in The Red and The White.” (New Hungarian Maar thinks so: Quarterly). , Cinema Papers, June-July — 27

JANCSO

A circle is yet again to be broken by a horse-soldier.

Agnus Dei.

The vast wilderness of the Great Hungarian Plain "Jancso realizes his conception in every atom of the film; continually and without stopping, he enforces the very same thing. History, his vision of history. His vision of history’s current, of the enormous dynamism which carries away men out of the perspective of individual ex­ istence, often confusedly, but actually as a part of a process which can scarcely be experienced individually but which moves according to an objectively determined order.” (The New Hungarian Quarterly.)

To say this, though, simply moves the problem of interpretation one stage further back. And this kind of interpretation depends on distinctions between subject and object; between individuals and the mass which Jancso’s films appear to abolish. He shows a condition of in­ dividual feeling, a capacity to suffer and to im28 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Right: “The scene is again unreal, more precisely, is only realistic in a higher sense. The battle order of the blackuniformed soldiers seems to be perfect fiction . . .” The Red and the White.

The best moments in the film seem to reflect a strong and intense awareness of the complicated and perhaps inarticulate quality of individual suffering and endurance. These moments occur, for instance, in the continuous tracking shots of the blonde girl as she circles and rallies the workers with a kind of steely determination that still allows some gestures of sympathy. (She is the one who runs to the side of the fallen landlord.) Or again, the shots of the cadet in the instinctive gesture he makes towards the girl, touching her face, her hair, and evoking the loyalties to a fellow human being that conflict with his role as a soldier. Or the demonstration of the old man, as he falteringly takes up the celebration of the workers, and cuts his wrist to share his blood. Or the incident in which the soldier stumbles into the stream and sinks into the blood-stained water.

But these moments are contained within a more prosaic and deliberate political message­ film, in which the representative qualities of groups of people are more important than their ritual performances. I think, then, the film would have been stronger without the last sec­ tion of the workers’ return from death, and the with its white, chalky buildings. The Round-Up. demonstration of the girl killing the aristocrat and the soldiers. This kind of resolution is im­ agine the future, as it is shared and transformed plicit in the earlier sequences, and doesn’t need throughout a social group. to be elaborated.

Clearly the peasants are not calling on God; To reduce the people’s involvement in their they reject the traditional forms of religion, burn cause to a simple question (even though it may the church, harass the priest; and they change not appear simple to them) of political priorities, the Lord’s Prayer. But they retain the form; the and tactics, is to deny the fundamental, secret substance is changed — as one of them remarks, and momentary intuitions of a greater and more “man does not live by prayer alone” — yet they profound truth. If Mother Courage, for ex­ find it necessary to use hymns that express their ample, is just about profiteering and punishment intention of creating a new and equalitarian during war, then it is a relatively uninteresting state. Jancso recognizes the need both for bread play. What that drama, and Red Psalm reflect, is and prayer, but finally he can find no satisfac­ a profound apprehension of the roots of tory way of incorporating that appeal to the resistance. Jancso presents to us peasants who spirit which goes beyond questions of food and are deprived, not simply by incessant toil, by shelter and democratic processes. semi-starvation, by stunted expectations for

JANCSO

their children, by a repressive system of land tenure, but also of any adequate means of ex­ pressing and realizing their spiritual isolation and alienation.

As we are shown in the film, the church has become identified with the ruling classes and their exploitation. But the needs that the church once met still exist. What Red Psalm achieves is the restoration, through its own poetry, its own intensity, of the capacity of ritual and ceremonial expression to the people. The film, then, is not about something. It is not, for ex­ ample, simply a crude propaganda message about class conflict. It’s not even, I think, a film about power. Lorant Czigany holds to this theory: “The figures of the chessboard are divided into two distinct categories: the oppressors and the oppressed. Or even more simply: if there are two groups of people, only one can have power. This is the basic rule of Jancso’s game. His theorem is that those who have the power use it, not because they are wicked, or without morals, but by definition: power exists only if it is used. The supporting theorem is that stalemate does not exist. It is probably a bitter lesson drawn from East European history. If you live in Jancso country you have to accept these rules.”3

We might feel that this explanation relies too simply on the external facts of history and political movements within a particular land­ scape. It doesn’t take us very far into Jancso’s depiction of the ways in which people face crises of war and revolution; neither into his consistent focus on people’s attempts to recognize and name the energies that motivate and appear to control them.

Red Psalm is not a film about qualities of hope, resilience, persistence and heroism, it is one that embodies and creates the roots of that heroism or, at least, the possibility of heroism.

And in this way, it regenerates a popular and profound form of art. In consequence, Jancso’s film is thoroughly subversive. If the workers are

able to express and recognize their innermost needs through common ceremonial perfor­ mances, then they might come to realize that the present system doesn’t suit them either. So, as though the producers were aware of the danger, the film makes a determined attempt to con­ clude on an instrumental note, to suggest that the immediate needs are those of sweeping away the oppressors, and sto stress' single-minded determination and commitment to the new state.

This sort of ending appears as a kind of coda tacked on to several of Jancso’s films. It’s been suggested, for example, that the appearance of the red helicopter at the end of Elektreia was forced through political pressure.

Part of the strength of Red Psalm’s symboliz­ ing intention lies in its persistent feel for simple, elemental objects. The world of the peasants is shown to us opening out to vast horizons across the dry plains, with little beside white, chalky buildings, simple wooden furniture; sacks of wheat, loaves of bread, glasses of wine, fruits and vegetables; banners, torches, candles and ribbons. Objects don’t exist for themselves, and certainly not for the kind of instrumental use that is made of cars, say, in contemporary American police dramas. They exist, rather, to reinforce a constant sense that the film is dealing with primitive and absolute needs and conflicts.

It is no accident that in the police films the cars are usually smashed up, made un­ recognizable (or unserviceable, which comes to the same thing). The objects in Red Psalm retain an invincibly simple appearance, and reflect a stable, continuous order of things: the peasant’s relation to the earth, the strength and sustenance he draws from it, his sense of piety which ex­ presses his dependence on it. This sense of a universal order is reflected in the deliberate variety of folk-song; in the open, endless land­ scape; and in the reduction of language to a few essential forms — song, chants, litanies — where the form controls the meaning. Exactly what is said might not matter, and Gyula Maar com­ ments on Jancso’s disregard for exact content.

“Jancso doesn’t bother at all about certain things. For instance, he hardly pays attention to the words which are said in the film. I had previously been a witness when he got the actor to improvise the words; when he said: ‘Here at this point say something.’

“The texts that come into being in this way, must never be more than simple sentences, words of command and instructions; they must never contain any kind of express­ ed philosophy, or value judgement, or a description of a state of affairs that allows one to infer a character, or an obvious psychologizing content.

“Again we arrived at a point which could make his method look suspicious: how is it possible that he should care so little about the spoken word, especially since in other respects his style is completely removed from the sort of improvisations which are peculiar to the cinema verite. Yes, there it would be compehensible, there it is a well-known practice: the actors are given the basic set­ ting, the situation and they improvise the text to fit. But here evidently something else is involved: he pays such attention to the choreography, he transposes the psy­ chology to such an extent into the construction of movement, he exploits this possibility undoubtedly residing in the fundamental potentialities of the film so much that as a rule the text can play a role only as part of this dynamism, as a practical or as an emotional vocabulary.” (NHQ)

This emotional vocabulary draws on sexual as well as religious energies. A usual pattern of the dancing sequences is one of steadily and slowly forming circles that are broken up by a tangen­ tial formation of soldiers. There is, too, a circle of workers beside the railway line, and the ceremony of the soldier recanting is broken by a train carrying soldiers that steams across and disrupts the slow circular movement. The danc­ ing repeatedly helps to refocus and regenerate the energies of the group as it is time and again broken up by the horses or foot-soldiers. And the patterning of that dancing, as well as the semi-caressing shots of the three naked women, clearly invokes a common sexual energy and 3. ‘Jancso Country’, Lorant Czigany, Film Quarterly, Fall, determination.

1972.

This is beautifully illustrated in one short se­ quence when the three women slowly walk into the distance, isolated on the plain, and discard their clothing. The silence is broken by a regular drumming that sounds like a charge'of buffalo.

And the soldiers burst into the foreground, chas­ ing the women and shrieking with a kind of revenging lustfulness. They are driven off, but again the impression of chaotic and brutal sex­ ual energies has been played off against a simple, controlled and ritual expression.

Jancso achieves this steady concentration of underlying forces partly through his camera movements. . These are so fluid and unbroken that they suggest, and even appear to create, the unity of his peasants, and their relations to the military.

One has only to think of the opening shot, that very long, restless, constantly tracking shot that involved the men, women, horses, the bailiff, and the soldiers, and which clearly expressed the in­ volvement of actors with each other through repeated tracking back to individuals, and final­ ly coming to rest on the bailiff, with his abrupt comment: “ It is time.”

Then there is the movement of the horses, galloping and wheeling across the plain, at times cutting through the crowds. The horses suggest a specific sexual reference, as well as a more generally disturbing fear of what is perhaps un­ controllable. It is this sense of human beings be­ ing swept along, of being unable to achieve a moment of stillness that becomes quite terrifying; and also distinguishes the soldiers’ characteristic ways of acting from those of the peasants.

Much of the film consists in tracking medium­ shots, but there are two sequences where the camera moves to long-shot for sustained takes.

One is the firing of the church, and the other the massacre around what looks like a maypole.

They are both moments of particular intensity, and they are both too simply dramatic to be described as ritual.

The effect of the first long-shot is to allow the flaming church to light the film like a beacon; to recall and intensify the earlier blaze of the wheat, and stress, not so much that man doesn’t live by prayer alone, but the absolute need for the kind of symbolizing qualities the church represented. It may seem strange to say this when the peasants are obviously burning down the church. Yet the sustained long focus of Janc­ so’s shot of the blazing church against darkness represents too strongly a positive, artistic quality. He is using and transforming what the church represented, concentrating the essentially religious energies his people draw upon.

The massacre scene, the climax of the film, is shot looking down into a valley where the peasants are assembled. The scene is carefully set to involve the soldiers in the peasants’ celebrations and to emphasize the suggestion of betrayal in their movements. For the first and only time in the film, the movement within the group is directly outward from the centre, as though things fall apart, and the centre cannot hold. The soldiers open fire and the peasants fall, in a distanced and rather understated massacre. “ Understated” , though, is not the word. Maar describes a similar scene from The Red and the White: “The scene — strictly speaking — is again unreal.

More precisely, is only realistic in a higher sense. The battle order of the black-uniformed soldiers seems to be a perfect fiction; it apparently doesn’t resemble the model of any kind of battle order. Its norms are provided only by its appearance. All of the Reds die at one and the same moment: this is too absurd. Somebody says this too, Jancso characteristically doesn’t reply that the laws of vision demand it, but as always he strives — he is to me brooking no contradiction — to give a realistic ex­ planation. This is what he says: ‘When such a well-aimed volley is fired everyone dies at once’.” (NHQ).

Continued on P.91 Cinema Papers, June-July — 29

“I ’m still here, we’re s till in business, and we’re doing better and better.”

Perhaps you could begin by tell­ ing us how you got started in film distribution . . .

Well, I started by writing to some U.S. film production com­ panies, whose names I had obtained from a trade directory, and even­ tually got hold of five horror films which I sold to the 0-Ten network.

This was a kind of proof to myself that I could do it. Then I undertook the handling in Australia of the film Seven Shadows, which did pretty well. But things got a bit rough for a while — I didn’t have any money and I didn’t have any product. Then literally at the death-knock, I got a call from Clyde Packer and I was made film consultant to the Nine Network. Packer advanced me the money to go overseas to buy films for the network.

At that time the “ Channel 7 revolution” was on, which meant that Channel 7 was buying up film and television series. I think my buying trip stirred a hell of a lot of things up, because I was accused of paying higher prices for films than I should have. I, however, continued buying films for television.

In fact, I was so anxious to buy television material that I began to talk to various producers and dis­ tributors who hadn’t even released th eir product th e a tric a lly in Australia. To convince them to give me television rights, I had to say I’d release it theatrically first, and then sell it to television. So at first, the theatrical thing was basically a springboard to give me television rights.

30 — Cinema Papers, June-July

ANDREW GATY

Andrew Gaty began his career in business as a supply manager in the automotive industry for a conservative British company, but his ambitions from his earliest years were for a career in the film industry. At the age o f 25, he left the security of a regularly paid job and from a small office in Swanston St., Melbourne started, to operate as an independent film dis­ tributor. That was in 1969-70. Since then, he has moved his operation to Sydney; set up a healthy exhibition liasion with Hoyts Theatres; presented two stage plays; distributed more than 100 major releases, including two recent Australian films; set up a direct exhibition outlet with two cinemas in Melbourne and one in Sydney; ventured into international film financing; and expanded into film distribution in Britain.

Until 1975, it seemed he could do no wrong. But the reces­ sion that hit the exhibition-distribution industry with the in­ troduction o f colour television, hit Gaty harder than most.

Never one to build up a capital reserve, always reinvesting in some more lavish enterprise, the Gaty empire has been suffer­ ing from such cash flow convulsions of late that some industry observers have prediced a demise for 7 Keys.

When Cinema Papers’ contributing editor, Anthony I. Gin­ nane, interviewed Gaty in his Sydney office, he was endeavour­ ing with much difficulty to hold onto the third week o f a threeweek straight run that H oyts, as a measure o f assistance to his liquidity, had granted him in their Melbourne drive-ins. The problem was that prints o f the program: a M ario Bava horror film from Italy, “ House o f Exorcism” , which was to open the next day, had yet to arrive in Sydney from Rome.

The interview was continually punctuated with telephone calls as Gaty tried to locate the prints and meet the deadline.

As it turned out, the prints managed to arrive in time.

Still, I tried to make a go of it and we released a few: Paddy and so forth with moderate success.

It was about this stage that you began talking of a merger with the embryonic Filmways organization Yes. In those days it was very dif­ ficult to get a film into the Hoyts or Greater Union circuit. Frankly that may well have been because of the product one had. But my first reac­ tion, inexperienced as I was, was: “They have got something against me” . In fact they had a hell of a lot of suppliers and a hell of a lot of product.

Hoyts had an arrangement that they shared their playing time with Fox, United Artists and Columbia.

So it was virtually impossible to get in with Hoyts. Also, in those days it was believed that an independent distributor could get only reject films that the other people wouldn’t pick up, and that, therefore, the product would only be second rate.

So they weren’t fantastically enthusiastic.

Greater Union was also difficult, for there again you had an over­ supply of product. They also had their own distributor. So, the only people I could really work with at that stage were the few independent exhibitors, and Ward, at Dendy, was one of the most obvious.

In retrospect, what were the basic causes o f your split up?

It was not really a difference of

ANDREW GATY

thinking between us. Ward is a very good promoter and I think he runs Dendy very successfully. Basically, it was a case of two people who are quite headstrong, each wanting to be a hero, and there was only room for one. Since then, Filmways have continued almost exclusively to pre­ sent exploitation product, whereas 7 Keys have moved into major dis­ tribution activity.

this business, I would like to be the best, and the best films are the most successful. Quite frankly, monetary considerations really come second.

My philosophy was: if I do something and do it really well, I’ll make money anyway.

Is that why some of the occasional skin flics and exploitation pictures that 7 Keys have distributed, have not had the company logo included in the ads?

Your first “mini major” distribu­ tion coup was signing for the Sagittarius franchise. How did this come about?

The fact is, that as we grew there was a need for certain product. We put more and more people on the payroll and we had to pay them.

And drive-ins being what they are, we needed exploitation product. It reached a point which I frankly wasn’t very happy about; where we had to take certain films on that were not necessarily against my principles, but which I would have preferred not to handle.

Through Irvin Shapiro, who is our U.S. agent. I would have to give the bulk of the credit to Irvin because what he did was absolutely fantastic. He is such a respected man in the business, that if Irvin says that he wants to buy a film for Australia, there isn’t any question.

Did you have to put up a large sum of clients’ money for the initial Sagittarius franchise films?

Everything is relative. These days I consider it to be fairly large — safe, but large. We knew what they wanted; we knew how much money we had coming in and what we could afford. The deal was struc­ tured so that it would work with us.

And yet you hadn’t, at that stage, managed to get the Hoyts door open?

No. I took a gamble that if we got a strong product we would get in. In retrospect, we made all those films successful, with the exception of Pied Piper — a very unfortunate piece of work — and yet none of them were really successful elsewhere/

Ken Russell’s Tommy for which 7 Keys is rumoured to have advanced $100,000. Its total gross in Australia, however, has approached $1 million. Eric Clapton (top) and Roger Daltry (above).

Still, it was not till about six was Hoyts who were the first to months after you signed up Ken give us a breaks Beaton, as managing director, that So in effect, you give a large por­ you finally got into Hoyts. How did tion of the credit for getting into that come about?

Hoyts to Ken Beaton . . .

I was always very concerned Yes, I think so — but it was a about my lack of knowledge in film distribution. I felt we combination of things. I am very would be better off if someone very enthusiastic and pushy, and Ken experienced and knowledgable listens to what I say and interprets could talk to the exhibitors for us, it into the exhibitors’ language. Joe and I heard that Ken Beaton was was our first Hoyts date (in leaving United Artists. It took Melbourne drive-ins), and it did so about six weeks for me to convince well that we continued. him to take a gamble with 7 Keys, Has there been any conscious and even then we didn’t have pattern for your film buying?

Hoyts. We really thought we would end up with Greater Union, but it I feel that if I am going to be in

What about your brief move into liye theatre?

I find live theatre extremely satisfying. We did Last o f the Red Hot Lovers, with Harry Corbett, which on the whole I would con­ sider a success from a monetary point of view. We continued as a heavy investor in The Man Most Likely To, with J. C. Williamsons as partners, but to mount a play like Lovers takes six months of your life. It’s too time-consuming.

You then moved into theatrical exhibition with the Palace and the Mayfair, in Melbourne, and the Rivoli, in Sydney. Why then, at a stage when you had got into Hoyts after a long attempt to do so and you had established yourself very successfully with a string of high­ grossing films, did you And it Cinema Papers, June-July — 31

ANDREW GATY

**!*W$S

Top: Mel Brooks’ The Twelve Chiars, a shelved film in Britain till Gatty released it on a double bill with The Wild Party.

Above: The Entertainer, with Jack Lemmon. This $6 million film was 50 per cent financed by Stigwood and 50 per cent by 7 Keys and associated interests.

necessary to increase overheads by going into theatres yourself, par­ ticularly two theatres in Melbourne, the latter of which had a reasonably chequered box-office history?

three theatres, probably the Palace has been the most successful and the Mayfair least successful?

So far, yes.

The Wild Party, a film disowned by its director, James Ivory, after cuts were made by AIP. Top: Perry King and Raquel Welch. Bottom: Raquel Welch and James Coco,

with more theatres and its back­ log was incredible. So when the Richbrooke became available, and was granted a licence, we thought we’d grab it and match it up with the Palace.

Hoyts is a large and successful I’ve heard rumours recently that company, and they have to be you are getting rid of the Mayfair So you see yourself basically con­ careful and back their judgment. I tinuing in a distribution activity, think we were somewhat unique in rather than an exhibition activity That’s a fact. It is a simple the industry in the chances we took.

So from time to time, we had business decision. Right now there Well frankly that is what I think various disagreem ents on the is a shortage of product. Theatres potential success of a film with on the whole are facing relatively we are, and when we reach a point difficult times, and we were always where the exhibition puts strain and Hoyts.

I think Hoyts’ attitude is quite primarily distributors rather than pressure on the distribution, then reasonable, because from their exhibitors. We really got ourselves we’ll have to look at our priorities. point of view it is a reasonable thing cinemas as an insurance. One thing One of the things 7 Keys have to say that only Disney works as far led to another, we had got the as children’s films are concerned. Palace and that was working; and been spectacularly noted for, has We had had the success of Black then that created problems in been your policy of buying films in Beauty, but it could have been an Sydney. It was difficult to put advance — sometimes going so far accident. When they saw Char­ p re s s u re on H o y ts to play as to buy films even before produc­ lotte’s Web, they were only luke­ something in Sydney, particularly tion has been completed. I am think­ warm. Also, it was impossible to when Sydney was so hard to get in­ ing of “Wild Party” or “Apocalypse get Christmas playing time with to, when were not giving it to them Now” or even “Tommy”. Other dis­ tributors in Australia have said that Hoyts, as their major suppliers had in Melbourne.

I also thought that Sydney was you’ve pushed the prices of films for to get it all. u n d e rs e a te d in re la tio n to Australia to an alarming high. Do Would it be fair to say that of the Melbourne — it could have done you think that’s true?

32 — Cinema Papers, June-July

No. I worry about the prices we have to pay, but again everything is relative to how badly we want a certain film. I don’t think we have consciously made a bad deal.

I have been told that you paid very close to a $100,000 advance for “Tommy”, which would have been almost a record for an independent at the time . . .

But then everybody wanted Tom­ my. I was convinced it was going to be a big success and it turned out to be a fantastic decision because we have grossed not far off a million dollars so far, and we got our money back in three weeks.

What did you put up as an ad­ vance for “Apocalypse Now”?

Let’s put it this way: a lot more than Tommy. Of course, the film will be a lot more expensive.

From about the time you got your first film into Hoyts, until about 18 months ago, apart from as you say

ANDREW GATY

“Pled Piper”, there was almost no film that 7 Keys released that didn’t establish itself as something of a hit.

It almost seemed as if you had a golden touch. But recently, you have had a series of highs and lows with probably more films that haven’t performed as well as one might have expected them to do. Does this seem due to anything specific, or just bad luck?

from Britain. When you look at Australia, it is doing as well or better than Britain, with only 13 million people versus 53, so everyone is very enthusiastic for a new distributor. They think maybe here is a ray of sunshine, a ray of hope.

There have been rumours around town that 7 Keys has had all sorts of cash flow problems over the past few months; that various overseas producers have been screaming about royalties that allegedly have not been paid — specifically Lew Grade regarding “The Tamarind Seed” and “Great Expectations” — and that perhaps the long term future of 7 Keys is bankruptcy.

Would you like to comment on that?

Well first we pre-bought Wild Party, and I was away during the Australian launch. Our promotion tended to be on the conventional lines rather than the unconven­ tional lines that I personally tend to adopt.

It is very interesting that you should say that, because that brings me to the next point I was going to talk about: was 7 Keys’ association with _the two Australian films, “ M acArthy” and “ The Re­ movalists”, negotiated in your ab­ sence? Some people associated with “MacArthy” in Melbourne, seem to think that part of the reason for the lack of success of that film was that you were away during the opening of the film . . .

No, I can’t agree with that because I personally organized the promotion for Great MacArthy, though admittedly I wasn’t here on the opening night.

There are usually problems with a director’s first film, because, generally speaking, directors with their first features try and make them the greatest ever. They get over ambitious. Very few first films succeed and while no doubt all the intentions were right in the Great MacArthy, I looked at it again about 10 days ago and thought it could have been a hell of a lot better than it was.

What about “The Removalists”?

We expanded very quickly. We got involved in the production of a film, personally investing $250,000.

We have invested $500,000 in setting up in Britain. We also financed a television pilot com­ pletely on spec.

It is quite true to say that we have had a fairly serious cash flow problem. Probably most people ex­ pect me to say, “everything’s fine” , but this is a situation that almost all film companies have experienced from 20th-Century Fox, when they had to sell the back lot, down.

We were one of the major con­ tributors to Hoyts’ record profit last year and we were doing ex­ tremely well. We were, I think for a long time, their leading supplier.

We expanded. Nobody is financing us. Cash flow problems obviously have to be taken seriously, but we think we can solve them and I think we are well on our way.

David Baker’s The Great MacArthy (top) and Tom Jeffrey’s The Removalists (above) were both distributed in Australia by 7 Keys.

Would it be a fair comment to say that perhaps in retrospect you may have tried to advance too fast?

Of course. I mean everybody is telling me that. But they were tell­ ing me that when I started. I am be­ AIP in the U.S.. But you know ing very frank, I am not hiding critics tend to be on the side of the anything and I think that through a bit more work and just a bit of luck director all the time. everything is going to be fine. In How does the British operation fact, my forecast is that by the end of May we will have solved all our work? problems and be back to where we were. Britain is making money An ex-Rank man, John Bell, is in now, we have got films in release charge there and he has almost there, and the British Film Theatre total autonomy. I tend to get a bit is working; Hoyts are helping us impetuous at times — maybe I am here with dates; and our arive-in too smart for myself. The British films are grossing amazingly well scene is a fair bit different to the — Vampyres could be another Case Australian scene. Audiences there of the Smiling Stiffs. It’s absolutely can’t be bulldozed into going to a killing them in drive-ins, so I think film, no matter how much you run that all in all by May everything, around and enthuse. In Australia, will be back to normal. the public responds much quicker had us out of business to a heavy campaign than in lastEveryone year and then they had us out Britain. of business in January and every How much extra prestige does week we are going out of business. buying for Britain and Australia If I go on a trip I am supposed to give you in terms of the international have gone to Brazil. market place?

You’re still here . . .

Well Rank considered it to be a I would say that any film that is success. It did the best figure at the based on a stage play, particularly Astoria for three years. Still it on a one-set play — which basically wasn’t as successful as I had hoped, The Removalists was because you because given what I had done for it spend about 17 minutes at a time in in Britain, it should have broken the one room — gets boring. All it records. I therefore was a little dis­ is, is people talking. I really don’t appointed. It opened at the know of any film based on a Astoria, plus, I think, 29 theatres stage play that did well. the following week. It went into another 30 theatres in London, then Could you tell us a little bit about we separated the double and Rank the financial structure of “The re-booked them as a separate Entertainer”? program. Twelve Chairs is doing a lot better than Wild Party.

The film cost $6 million to make and it was 50 per cent financed by How much do you think this is Stigwood and 50 per cent by 7 Keys due to the furore over the film being and associated interests. We got cut without Ivory’s consent? distribution rights in Australia and I think Ivory is a schmuck. I saw Britain, and contrary to a news­ paper report, no doctors were in­ his version and I saw the recut ver­ sion. Obviously when you recut a volved in the financing. film it does create problems, but Now that brings us to your ven­ Ivory made incredible accusations ture into Britain. I heard that the and most of them were quite un­ I think it makes us a unique com­ “Twelve Chairs”/ “WiId Party” true. His timing was pretty bad, double wasn’t the big success too. He accused us of cutting it, and pany. On the whole, producers are we didn’t touch the film — it was somewhat disappointed with results originally hoped for . . .

I am still here, 1 am still in business and we are doing better and better. ★ Cinema Papers, June-July — 33

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Part 1 of a historical survey of women in Australian It is 44 years since an Australian woman directed a feature film for the commercial cinema.

Of more than 30 completed features in which the Australian Film Development Corporation and the Australian Film Commission have in­ vested production money since 1971, only two have had screenplays written by women.

Only two of these films have had women as producers — although two features made without government investment since 1969 have had a woman producer.

Until this year not one of these films had been edited by a woman.

These figures alone are enough to reveal a situation in which women have rarely held positions in the film production industry where they matter — among the top creative per­ sonnel. ..

Australia is not unique in this respect. Figures I heard in Los Angeles in 1973 were that out of almost 3000 members of the Producers’ Guild, eight were women; of a similar number in the Directors’ Guild, 23 were women; out of 3500 members of the Writers’ Guild, 347 were women.

Anne Summers’ timely re-interpretation of re­ cent social history, Damned Whores and God’s Police, points up the difficulties women have faced in attempting to practise any art form. She uses literature as her main example, but if such a private and comparatively inexpensive art as writing has been so difficult for women to pur­ sue, how much harder an expensive art like film­ making?

Even when women have jumped the initial hurdle of getting a job, a training toehold, the difficulties have only just begun. In a field where there have never been enough opportunities for* 34 — Cinema Papers, June-July

everyone who wanted them, women have been the first to be rejected, or not even considered.

And, until recently, have nearly always been paid less than men. In organizations such as the ABC and Film Australia, where there is rivalry and competition, they have been the most easily eliminated of potential rivals. Women have done better as independents, but even there they have been reliant to a depressing degree on husbands to front up for them in business situations.

It is not surprising that the successful women, as individuals, are formidable and impressive.

Some of them were formerly creative artists in other spheres (art, acting, writing, television); others came from school or university; some had children, others did not; some had money, most did not. All those who achieved directing or producing status showed qualities in common — independence, courage, persistence, intellectual dedication to their work.

It is amusing, in a sad sort of way, that women who have staunchly held to their liberated views, trying to show that there is no difference in the quality of men’s and women’s work, are now being classified by a section of the women’s movement as imitation men — people who have compromised with the system. There are the women’s liberationists of today, fortunate in­ deed to have the comfort of a movement around them; and there are the women who have had to live liberation as best they could without a movement.

Women in film production have to be looked at not only against the background of the social attitudes of the day, but against the history of the Australian film industry.

This article is neither an analysis of the work of women filmmakers, nor an attempt to provide data-backed conclusions which only a mass

statistical survey can reveal, and which hopefully may emerge from the survey carried out last year by the Film and Television School. It also does not concern itself with women’s films made outside the professional mainstream. It is an attempt to set down for the historical record what women have done up to now in professional filmmaking in Australia.* -

The first Australian woman to have been seriously active in film production was Lottie Lyell. She is usually thought of as an actress, her best-known role being Doreen in The Sentimen­ tal Bloke (1918). What is not so generally known is her close collaboration with Raymond Longford on most of the 27 silent films he directed.☆ Longford has put this on record himself several times: “ Lottie Lyell was my partner in all our film activities.” 1 Lyell was born in Sydney in 1891, and studied acting under Harry Leston, a well-known Shakespearean actor. When she was only 17, Edwin Geach chose her to play the lead in An Englishman’s Home, which his company toured in Australia and New Zealand. The leading ac­ tor was Raymond Longford.

Their resulting association was to be amazing­ ly productive and romantic, yet a very sad one *The article deals only with women who work, or have worked professionally in films, and touches on television only where individual women have moved between both fields. For reasons of length, I have had to confine it, with a few exceptions, to women who have directed, written or produced.

1. Statement written by Longford for Larry Lake, February

Far left: Paulette McDonagh: “There are a few old pictures of me sitting in a cane chair hatted and gloved . . . God Almighty! You can’t wear gloves! Never wore a hat — only once for the still. I had to move the camera, help my cameraman. Most of the time there were only the two of us, the camera and three little legs . . .”

Centre left: Louise Lovely in 1925. A detail from the Jewell­ ed Night poster. Lovely scripted the Film, played the lead and was responsible for raising a good deal of the money.

Left: Lottie Lyell in 1924. Lyell was the leading actress in most of Raymond Longford’s Films, as well as being a valuable partner in all their Film activities.

Top right: Lottie Lyell (centre) in Raymond Longford’s A Maori Maid’s Love, which Lyell also co-scripted.

2nd top: Harry Thomas and Lottie Lyell in Longford’s The Silence of Dean Maitland.

The Sentimental Bloke, Arthur Tauchert, Margaret Reid and Lottie Lyell (3rd top); Arthur Tauchert and Lottie Lyell .(4th top); Lottie Lyell (bottom).

— fitting material for a film. After a few years on the stage, they began acting in films for Cosens Spencer, the producer. Longford, however, soon moved to direction. A small sec­ tion survives of one of his earliest films, The Romance of Margaret Catchpole (1911), starring Lottie Lyell. Her talent is clearly evident, and she also displays her ability as a horsewoman, often put to use in her films.

By 1917, Longford was the most highly regarded director in Australia. Lyell had acted in most of the 18 films he had made, and helped with their production, although her only produc­ tion credit up to that time was for scenario (with Longford) on A Maori Maid’s Love (1916). But Longford has recorded how, in 1915, he had ask­ ed her opinion about the film possibilities of the book, The Sentimental Bloke: “She had nothing but praise for the contents, and was positively certain it would prove a great success on the screen.”2 Lyell’s assessment was correct, and The Bloke, produced in 1918, made more money than any other Australian silent film up to that time, and, in addition, received by far the best reviews of any film. As well as playing Doreen, Lyell co-wrote the scenario with Longford, and helped with the art direction, costumes, editing and business matters. The film sequel, Ginger Mick (1920), also had a great success, and for that Lyell wrote the scenario and acted in it.

After a bout of tuberculosis, from which she was later to die, Lyell returned to films in 1921 to play in Rudd’s New Selection. She was credited with assistant direction and scenario on The Blue Mountains Mystery (1921), and The Dinkum Bloke (1922). And she had by now

formed a company with Longford — LongfordLyell Australian Picture Productions Ltd. Her last credits were for co-scripting Fisher’s Ghost (1924) and The Bushwhackers (1925), and for scripting The Pioneers (1926), adapted from Katherine Susannah Pritchard’s novel, a film not made until after her death.

An interview with Lottie Lyell appeared in The Picture Show of November 1921, signed by “Ambrose Adagio”: “You’ll enjoy a talk with Lottie Lyell, they told me. She’s got brains. The very thought of it was terrifying. It made a man think of high foreheads, and skirts that flopped at the back, and animated discussions about Socialism versus Individualism, or why women have the vote.”

But “Ambrose” was completely won over. He praised Lyell’s keen mind, her low musical voice, her modesty, her quick sympathies — “enthusiastic, original, possessing charm and common sense” .

Marjorie Osborne, the leading lady of The Blue Mountains Mystery, talked about Lyell in an interview: “I like brains in a woman, and she has them . . . She assists Mr Longford, and the two of them have plenty of healthy argument when their ideas about a scene are different.”3 The personal relationship between Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell was very deep, and it was generally believed in the industry that they were lovers. But Longford was already married and his wife a Catholic.

In Everyones of August 12, 1925, there is a small item headed “ Picture Producer’s Divorce” .-It reported that Melena Longford had petitioned Raymond Longford for divorce on the grounds of desertion: “His Honour granted the usual decree” . “The usual” meant a lapse of six months before the decree became absolute and either party could remarry.

On December 22, 1925, Lottie Lyell died too soon for Longford to marry her. Everyones call­ ed her in a small obituary, “one who has left the mark of her genius on Australian progress” .

Lyell’s death affected Longford’s later work, although there were other major factors contri­ buting to the decline of his career. He and Lyell had entered films in the most profitable era of Australian cinema, the years before World War I, the golden era before the U.S. began to secure overseas markets — to the world-wide im­ poverishment of indigenous production.

From 1914, and particularly after 1920, rais­ ing finance for Australian films became more and more of a struggle, although Longford’s films continued to make money. By 1927 the situation was such that a Royal Commission was set up to inquire into the industry. Raymond Longford gave extremely well-documented and well-reasoned evidence, but it did not endear him to distribution and exhibition interests. The onset of the Depression, and particularly the coming of sound, put a virtual end to his directing career.

2. Ibid.

3.

T h e T h e a tr e M a g a z in e ,

1921.

Still courtesy Eric Reade

Still courtesy Eric Reade

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Although Louise Lovely co-produced only one feature film, Jewelled Nights (1925), it is worth discussing her because of her plans for setting up continuous local production.

She was born in Paddington, Sydney, in 1896, of French and Swiss parentage, ana was pre­ cociously independent and responsible. Lovely, who now lives in Hobart, Tasmania, told me that when she was seven she used to go the rounds of business Firms in Sydney paying ac­ counts for her mother, a restaurateur.

She began acting as a child, and was touring with dramatic companies at an early age. Under the name of Louise Carbasse, she played in almost every theatre in Australia and New Zealand. She often acted with Nellie Stewart.

Between 1911 and 1913, she played in six films directed in Sydney by the actor Gaston Mervale.

She looked older than her years, and began play^ing adult roles early.

In 1914, she decided to go to Hollywood and ¡was given a screen test at Universal. The next 'day she' was in films. They dyed her hair blonde and changed her name to Louise Lovely: “ I didn’t know that Universal had changed my name until I saw it on a poster outside a theatre.

They had shown me a list of names, like Blanche Sweet and Raya Sunshine. I thought how ghast­ ly they all were. Raya Sunshine has always haunted me.”4 Lovely had several successful years at Univer­ sal, until she was blackballed by the studio for taking part in an actors’ dispute. She then went to Fox and became a leading star there. In spite of the blonde curls and the little girl Mary Pickford look, Lovely was very much the 20th 'century new woman, as her views in a 1920 interview show: “Louise Lovely believes in economic independence for women. She believes that girls should fit themselves early in life for self-support. Her belief is based on the fact that no matter how carefree the existence of a girl may happen to be, she never can know when she may be forced to face the responsibility of earning her own living.”5 For some obscure reason, Louise Lovely’s Hollywood career went into a decline in the ear­ ly 1920s, and in 1924 she returned to Australia with her American director husband, Wilton Welch. The trip was mainly to see her mother, but while she was here she set up Louise Lovely Productions with plans to make three films within 12 months. The company prospectus, with its glowing estimates of Australian (and es­ pecially of overseas) returns, was criticized by Eyeryones: “ If the sanguine estimates of the directors can be realized, there will soon be a rush of investors from all quarters, and before long the racecourses of Sydney will be deserted.

For who would back horses when money could be made at this rate?”

Louise Lovely Productions shot its first feature, Jewelled Nights, in Melbourne and on location in the remote Savage River area of Tasmania. It is not hard to see why the story, based on a novel by Marie Bjelke-Petersen,' attracted the independent-minded Louise — a Melbourne society girl suddenly realizes that« she can’t go through with her loveless marriage to a rich man, and flees in the middle of the ceremony. She crops her hair, disguises herself as a boy and goes to work in a mining camp in Tasmania. Things get rough, but a strong young miner comes to the “lad’s” protection and is strangely attracted to him. He soon discovers why.

Wilton Welch directed Jewelled Nights, but Louise Lovely wrote the scenario ana cut the 4. Interview with Louise Lovely in New, Idea, 8.11.69.

5. The Picture Show, January, 1921.

Billy Carter and Marie Lorraine (professional name of Iso­ bel McDonagh) in the McDonagh’s Those Who Love.

2nd top: Phyllis McDonagh, the youngest of the three sisters, was responsible for art direction and public relations on their films.

Bottom: The McDonagh mansion at Drummoyne where the sisters shot several of their films. It contained a magnificent collection of antique furniture and objet d’art.

film, as well as playing the lead. She was also personally responsible for raising a good deal of the money. In spite of enthusiastic audiences and intensive publicity, involving many personal appearances by Lovely, the film barely recovered half its costs.

In her evidence to the 1927 Royal Com­ mission, Louise Lovely described the distribu­ tion difficulties she had faced with Jewelled Nights. She condemned the contract booking system which ensured a monopoly for American films; she advocated some measure of preference, possibly a quota, for Australian and British films; she was enthusiastic about the idea of a Commonwealth government studio for the use of private producers; she also suggested that' the government could advance money to producers, to be repaid later; she recommended importing producers and other experts from abroad to teach, perhaps expatriate Australians, but not imported stars.

Perhaps her worst enemy, as for other Australian producers, had been the insiduous propaganda campaign against Australian production. She told the Commissioners: “From the time I commenced to produce a picture in Australia, I constantly heard the remark that good pictures could not be made here” .

Tired of the fight, and virtually bankrupt, she gave up. Jewelled Nights was not well received critically. The story was said to be hardly feasible, and the film too drawn-out, although most reviewers praised the photography and production details. Louise Lovely, used to more grandiose Hollywood expenditure, had almost certainly been over-ambitious in her first production.

This, however, was a mistake not made by the McDonagh sisters with their first film, Those Who Love (1926). And during the next seven years, they made three silent features, one sound feature, and about a dozen sound documen­ taries.

A newspaper article about director Paulette McDonagh, at the time of their last feature in 1932, described her as “probably the most out­ standing figure in the Australian motion picture industry today” . Yet, although she tried (and she was still in her twenties), she was never able to get another film off the ground, while directors like Ren Hall and Charles Chauvel went on.

The McDonagh enterprise was one of the most interesting in our film history — for in­ itiative, achievement, and for the talent of Paulette, the writer-director. At a time when there were very few women directors anywhere in the world, she and her sisters set up feature productions, made them to budget, and achieved an artistic standard equal to some of the output of the Hollywood studios. They were one of the few independent women producers in Australia who have not been in partnership with, or reliant on, a man. They used men in their productions, but they hired them in the usual professional way.

Isabel, Paulette and Phyllis were the three eldest daughters in a family of seven, and were very close in age and friendship. Their father was a well-known Sydney doctor, of Irish descent, while their mother was the Spanish daughter of the Argentinian Consul, and a nurse

AUSTRALIAN WOMEN FILMMAKERS

.

Still courtesy Eric Reade

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38 — Cinema Papers, June-July

before her marriage — by no means a common occupation for young ladies in the early 1900s.

The family lived in a house in Macquarie St, T h e P ic tu re th a t C au s e d | but the girls were later sent as weekly boarders an U n h e a rd of to Kincoppel Convent, Elizabeth Bay, run by an D is p la y o f E n th u s ia s m at order of French nuns, where discipline was so its P re m ie re strict that the nuns used to follow the girls a t th e R e g e n t T h e a t re, around listening to what they were saying to Sydney. each other. Paulette was once nearly expelled by the Mother Superior for writing a satirical poem BOOKED about a nun. In spite of threats, she refused to FO R apologize.

F IR S T The three sisters had been drama-struck since RELEASE IN childhood, and their interest was nurtured by EV ERY their father, who was official doctor to the J. C. C A P IT A L Williamson theatrical company. They were C IT Y often taken to the theatre, and gazed and listen­ BY ed through the stair rails at night while their HOYTS parents entertained leading actors of the day.

THEATRES LTD .

But, to the 1920s generation, drama meant film. It was the great mass entertainment, and Now Proving films, mainly American, flowed through our a Box Office theatres in a steady stream, the programs often A ttra c tio n in changing two and three times a week. The girls New South W ales. spent the weekdays at school, the weekends at F o r A v ailab le] the cinema. Paulette and Phyllis were already D ales A pply | to working on the script for their first film during B.D.F. I their last year at school. .

305 P I T T ST., i After they left school it was films morning, SY D N E Y . | afternoon and night. Paulette said: “ I used to ---------------------- _j start in the morning, and I’d sit there and love BRANCHES IN ALL STATES the film. Eat it up. I sat and I felt and I cried.

Then I’d go out to Sargents and have a Sargents’ pie and a cup of coffee. Then I’d go back to the afternoon session. And I’d go back at night. The same film. In the afternoon and evening sessions I just stared. I watched how the actors moved the backgrounds, Low they put the film together.

I watched where they took a close-up, where they took a middle-shot, a long-shot and what they meant. And I learnt to do films that way.”6 The girls, who had never been out of Aus­ tralia, prepared themselves as best they could through the limited avenues available. Paulette took a correspondence course in scriptwriting from Hollywood, and for three months attended a school of acting technique run by P. J. Ramster, a minor director. Isobel, the actress and eldest of the three, took the name of Marie Lorraine, and won a leading role in Beaumont Smith’s Joe (1924). She also had a small role in Painted Daughters (1925).

Phyllis, the youngest, was assigned the art direction and public relations. She even played bit parts in the films. She said: “ We had a downto-earth approach. We knew talent wasn’t enough by itself. We thought well ahead and planned meticulously. We spent hours working out costs to keep the films within budget. We had a rigid shooting schedule, and everything was down on paper.”

Their father, an unusual man who believed in his daughters’ ability to do other than domestic things, gave them £1000 to start them off, but he died before production began. The money, however, wasn’t enough to cover the costs of Those Who Love.

A newspaper report at the time said: “They went to men to invest in their venture, but the men scoffed at the idea of girls succeeding where others had failed . . . The sisters gritted their teeth and decided to stand by themselves.”

The girls freely admitted that they could never have made their films without the use of the large mansion at Drummoyne, where the family had moved from Macquarie St., and their father’s magnificent collection of antique fur­ niture and objet d’art. Paulette had realized the importance of backgrounds and sets from her study of American films. She even spoke of another Australian director with contempt: “ My dear, he used wallpaper!”

She created elaborate studio sets, and insisted on real interiors if she thought they were needed — the Hotel Australia, the Ambassadors night club, Long Bay Gaol. “ In those days you had to compete against America, and I knew there were certain original settings which no money could buy.”

Australian films at that time generally had a make-shift, poverty-stricken look. The richness and depth of the interiors and set dressings, the meticulous attention to detail, immediately lifted the McDonaghs’ work above the herd.

The McDonaghs’ films were different in other ways. The sisters were extremely critical of Australian films, especially of their themes, and of the “crude Australian” image, an older ver­ sion of today’s “ocker” image. Paulette’s scenarios were sensitive love stories, mainly set in the city, moving between well-bred society and humble life, interweaving romance with the drama of the business world (The Far Paradise), the criminal world (The Cheaters), the dockside world (Those Who Love). They were on the level of the better type of popular novel, but then so were the majority of Hollywood scenarios. Her heroines, always played by Marie Lorraine, were girls of spirit, never conformist, even though the films had happy endings.

6. All direct quotations by Paulette McDonagh are from an interview which Graham Shirley and I had with her on August 14, 1974.

Continued on P.89

UIWMO VISCONT1 1906-1976 Arguably Italy’s greatest filmmaker, Luchino Visconti directed only 14 features in his 40-year career. He began as an assistant to Jean Renoir, working on Les Bas-Fonds, Une Partie de Cam­ pagne and La Tosca (Renoir/Koch). In 1942, Visconti directed Ossessione, his first feature, and one of the most important fore-runners of the neo-realist movement.

This was followed by La Terra Trema in 1947, though it was Senso (1954) that really establish­ ed his present reputation. Senso marked a new direction for Visconti with its historical setting, aristocratic concerns and the emergence of an almost operatic juxtaposition of composition and music. It also demonstrated his love of in­ tense, concentrated depictions of emotion within an epic sweep.

Visconti later perfected this style in The Leopard and, one suspects, Ludwig — the miss­ ing 93 minutes have rather broken the film and one is only left with disjointed, dazzling fragments. Alongside this stylistic refinement, developed a heightened singularity of purpose, and Conversation Piece, his second last film, is evidence of this. It has the same unforced elegance as John Ford’s The Searchers, a simplicity which in no way suggests the cleverness of its camera-work. (Mangano’s entrance into the Professor’s apartment, for ex­ ample.)

Conversation Piece is also memorable for its clarity of vision, as if Visconti could, unlike his Professor, see the delicate balance between “politics and ethics” . It is, therefore, surprising

The perfection of a style, Visconti’s truely magnificent The Leopard. Angelica (Claudia Cardinale), after having embraced Concetta (Lucilla Morlacchi), looks back to check Tancredi’s reaction.

that both Ludwig and Conversation Piece should have met with such violent responses. At the New York Festival screening of Conversation Piece, for example, the audience reacted with continuous hissing and hand-clapping, and prompted Visconti to describe Americans as “rednecks who only understand violence” .

Visconti’s last film, L’lnnocente, had its premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is a planned highlight of the upcoming Melbourne and Sydney Festivals. It was just prior to Visconti filming this D’Annunzio book, that Cinema Papers’ Italian correspondent, Robert Schar, interviewed him. As the discus­ sion is primarily concerned with Conversation Piece, the interview is preceeded by an assess­ ment of the film by Jack Clancy.

Faced with Konrad’s involvement in politics, the Professor can help him after a beating up but cannot comprehend any further commitment. Burt Lancaster and Helmut Berger in Conversation Piece.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 39

LUCHINO VISCONTI

Between his last serious illness and recent death, Visconti completed two films, Conversa­ tion Piece and L’Innocente. Of the two, Conver­ sation Piece, with even its title suggesting the form and tone of a Bergman “Chamber” piece, seems likely to be the more personal and therefore the more liable to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Yet, if it is true that an artist, like other men, will speak most truthfully when he is nearest death, then it is important to avoid the more glib distortions that have been served up as critical views of this film and see it clearly.

Conversation Piece is about Visconti’s con­ cerns—art, politics, life and death, commitment and involvement, the distance between generations, the state of contemporary Italy — but it is not autobiographical. It carries on in­ terests to be found in The Damned, Ludwig, The Stranger and Death in Venice but it is not a lack lustre remake of any of them; particularly, it is not a less successful version of Death in Venice.

It is a bleak, comfortless drama but it remains a marvellously affirmative statement.

Burt Lancaster plays a former American professor, now a recluse in his book-andpainting filled apartment in Rome. He plays him incidentally, but with convincing reserve, dignity and sensitivity, a man who has retired from the world to the safety of his works of art — “conversation pieces” for a man who has cut himself off from the possibilities of conver­ sation. He is intruded upon by an aristocratic family group — mother (Silvana Mangano), daughter (Claudia Marsani), daughter’s fiancee (Stefano Patrizi), and mother’s gigolo (Helmut Berger). Their earless amorality appals him, while their life and energy attract ana repel him.

Finally, however, their problems, especially those of Konrad, the mother’s lover, evoke his compassion. Involved against his will in Konrad’s troubles, to the extent of somehow “adopting” him as a son, he nevertheless rejects Konrad (whose farewell note is signed “your son”) just, as we discover in flashback, he had rejected his own wife many years before.

It is, we should note, the familial connection that is important here, not any imagined sexual one; the Professor and Konrad are not Aschen­ bach and Tadzio, though one British critic, Sylvia Miller in The Monthly Film Bulletin, talks of the Professor’s “discovery of his homosexual carnality” and describes the ‘failure’ of the film as “Visconti’s unwillingness or inability to make explicit the psychosexual content of his material” .

Mother and daughter — Claudia Marsani (left) and Silvana Mangano. Conversation Piece.

Helmut Berger as Konrad, the film’s most positive character.

The most immediately apparent element in the clash between the Professor and the family is that they are so obviously, and distastefully, “modern” . They represent a modern Italy and a modern world which are selfish, pleasure­ seeking, insensitive and crude (in language, behaviour and treatment of others), yet often disturbingly honest in their confrontation of feelings, in their refusal to take cover. They demolish the upstairs apartment and redo it in what seems to the Professor to be a hideously flip and trivial modern fashion. They use the Professor’s study for a pot and group sex event, yet disarmingly invite him to join in: “ It’s only a game we play”, says the daughter Lietta, and then wonders, “When you were young, you must have been the same?”

The Professor’s single political act, as a doc­ tor of science a long time ago, had been to renouce science in what now seems old fashioned terms —• “The price of progress is destruction.”

Faced with Konrad’s involvement in politics, he can help him after a beating up but cannot com­ prehend any further commitment. He claims, protecting himself, that he is “not interested in people who lose control of their own destiny” , yet he cannot understand Konrad’s attempt to confront a dangerous destiny. He condemns them all as “rude, stupid and useless” , yet they force him to see the emptiness of his own solitude. Lietta’s final accusation, “You had no right to turn your back on him” finds him, as he knows, guilty, and in his death there is the same helpless despairing gesture as we saw from him at the memory of his wife’s plea for help.

Yet the Professor is not Visconti, just as he is not Aschenbach. Visconti can see, and com­ passionately condemn, the Professor’s denial of life, just as he can see the Countess refusing to be comforted by illusions, or the fiancee Stefano, who is already the Fascist that Konrad fought in ‘68, and against whom he will redeem himself.

That Konrad’s return, through a kind of self­ disgust, to some form of political idealism ends

in his death, is not a matter for pessimism; together with the way we see the Professor’s denial of Konrad, and of life, it is part of the very positive statement that the film makes. Any temptation to equate the Professor’s despair with Visconti’s own view should be denied by the existence of the film itself, for which Visconti, wheelchair or not, was responsible.

Conversation Piece is not an immediately lovable work. The post-synchronized dialogue, which an international co-production demands, is distracting, not because the synching is inac­ curate, generally it’s not, but because some of the voices have been poorly chosen and, more importantly, because of the odd distortions from which the dialogue suffers. The performances, Lancaster and Mangano apart, are less than winning and the one-set location (with a painted backdrop of Rome outside) gives the picture the feel of a play — a conversation piece.

Yet, the heart of the work is the clear-headed, very personal vision which sees matters of morality, of life and death and youth and age, as being beyond the dreary bounds of politics.

Central to this vision of Visconti’s is a sort of stoic tolerance: his appalled view of contem­ porary middle-class civilization, and the certain­ ty of death expressed in the the opening credit shot of the feed-out tape of a heart machine, to which we recur at the end, are no grounds for despair.

Perhaps the mood of this work is best com­ pared to Yeat’s Sailing to Byzantium: “That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations — at their song,

“We want solitude and as soon as we have it completely, we want people around us.” The Professor protests at Stephano and Lietta having brought him a painting as an inducement to him letting them lease his upstairs apartment.

40 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.”

Visconti understood all of this, and while not wanting to be gathered into Yeats “ artifice of eternity” , he had enough faith to leave us this “monument” .

The upstairs tenants who walk on the ceiling above. The Professor protests at the amount of remodelling being undertaken by the Contessa.

LUCHINO VISCONTI

The professor is one who has chosen a certain mistaken path and who pays for it — this is my idea.

He is not a weak man — he is one who, at a certain moment, rebels and when he decides he doesn’t want to see these people again, he tries to get rid of her. That is a right reaction, a sacrosanct one, one I approve of. I would have reacted in the same way to those people.

Then, as a sort of conclusion, he in­ vites them to have a confrontation, to see what comes out of it. What comes out is all the rottenness.

Burt Lancaster as the Professor in Conversation Piece. “He has nothing to hope for ex­ cept death because he hasn’t known how to live.”

The film “Conversation Piece” have a great family of friends and an (“Gruppo di famiglia in un interno”) intensely communicative life . . . is concerned largely with your generation, a generation which has Certainly. I can, however, un­ failed by not finding, as is said in the derstand someone else’s solitude, film, a balance between morality even if it’s not my own. It’s an in­ and politics . . . teresting theme. Don’t you like it?

Don’t you find it interesting? Isn’t a Yes, with some exceptions. man alone in the world an interest­ ing character? Solitude is at once a But has anyone in recent history need and a burden. The professor found this balance? says so—in fact, in the course of the dining-room scene, you remember.

Some generations have; 19th cen­ We want solitude and as soon as we tury Italy, for example, found it in have it completely, we want people the Risorgimento, but then it was around us. If, therefore, you have lost again under fascism. My been life to me, you have rushed generation has remained uncertain, into my solitary existence, you have and though I, for example, have brought me life rather than death found it, the professor hasn’t. In a — when he quotes Proust, wasn’t it, certain sense I made a guilty who says that you are the upstairs character of him. tenant who walks on the floor above — he says you have been the So your film isn’t really auto­ opposite for me, you have brought biographical . . . me life that I do not want because it is so different from me, but which I No, it certainly isn’t. That’s non­ have ended up loving. sense. Several people have said it is, but I have always denied it. I am This confrontation with the exter­ not like him at all. He is a culpable nal world, reality, history, is shown figure, closed within his own to be fatal for him . . . egoism; a man who doesn’t want any human relationships. He said Ah, absolutely, otherwise he that he never wanted them because would have died normally, like us he would then have to be con­ all, and not in that condition. Cer­ cerned with people, not works. tainly, the whole film is pessimistic, But people create works, so the but I d o n ’t know th a t the professor is negative, not positive. professor’s death is pessimistic. I He has the possibility of being more could be optimistic, because we all understanding, but he doesn’t take have to die at a certain moment, it. He refuses to understand. Do don’t we? you remember that flashback to his wife? He wasn’t able to com­ While dying, it seems that he municate even with her. It’s put makes a gesture rather like a there to show that this inability to prayer. Is it a religious gesture? help or communicate is part of his nature. I definitely wanted him to No, absolutely not. He doesn’t be a negative character. even turn in God’s direction. He is a man who probably doesn’t have any religion — an atheist, I think. I So there is no hope for him . . . don’t know for sure. I haven’t According to me, none. He is, in thought it out precisely. fact, already headed towards death.

He has nothing to hope for except Given that the external reality is death, because he hasn’t known so violent, the film could be under­ how to live. stood as an invitation to retire into the tranquility of one’s own The theme of solitude is a home . . . recurrent one in your films . . .

No. It affirms the will to live, or Yes, in Ludwig, Death In Venice. rather, the will to begin living, to Also The Leopard in a way — yes, not end up like the professor. That is to not be so egotistical, so it’s always there. egocentric, so closed to all affec­ But in many interviews you claim tion. It would be better to face up to that you never felt alone because you reality and not die like that in bed.

The ambiguous character of Konrad is the incarnation of the failure of the ’68 movement. But this linking of political militancy and complete adoption of middle-class ways seems, to me, a bit simplistic. I don’t think that in Germany, to which it refers — for Konrad is a German — the movement would be reduced to these terms . . .

But this is one case; there could be thousands of other positive ones.

Who knows how many Germans there were who finished like this, and also sold themselves out to middle-class ways? Konrad is in fact the most positive character in the film, even though he is a youth who has lost his way, and who at a certain stage became a gigolo.

At the beginning he had good, clean ideas when he spoke of the riots of ’68. He was on the right track, then he fell into the midst of a rotten society, the Italian middleclass — let’s say the European middle-class or the middle-class of the world, because it’s not as though the American one is any better. Then Konrad redeems himself. When he denounced the fascist plot, he finds within himself his own ’68, because he is disgusted with everyone and everything. And he pays for it because Stefan kills him. Does he realize that it was a fascist who killed him? When he dies, he dies with Stefan’s scarf in his hand.

What did you think of ’68?

At the time I believed in it. Then I lost faith because I saw how everything, unfortunately, died out.

It didn’t get to the heart of the matter, neither in France nor in Germany. In Italy, it was nothing — a few students in Valle Giulia, where, according to Pasolini, the police were in the right.

One of the most important characters in the film is one who is absent, the Marquess’s husband . . .

He is actually Valerio Borghese, the one who escaped to Madrid.

My idea was to create a Valerio Borghese, one who escapes there after having tried to bring about a coup which doesn’t succeed.

Do you believe there is a possibili­ ty of a coup in Italy?

is because the left-wing forces are too strong, too wide awake at the moment. It will never come about.

Fascism doesn’t appear only in its external form . . .

But also in the nature, the per­ sonalities of the ch ara cters.

Especially Bianca, who is the real Italian middle-class woman: wife of a fascist, wealthy, covered in jewels, elegant, and who, behind all this elegance and wealth, hides all the defects of her husband. This is typical.

At the beginning she was going to be acted by Audrey Hepburn, wasn’t she?

Well, she was. It was to provide a com eback for H epburn, but Mangano is better. Hepburn is too im m a tu re , it seem s to me.

M angano is stro n g er, m ore suitable.

Was it Hepburn who refused the part?

Yes it was, foolishly, because it could have been a golden oppor­ tunity for her. But I am pleased, because I prefer Mangano. You see how things which seem to our dis­ advantage turn out for the best.

What is your next film going to be?

In spring I will begin The Inno­ cent (L’Innocente) by d’Annunzio.

Why d’Annunzio?

B e c a u s e it is g o o d an d fascinating, and I can do what I like with it. D’Annunzio is a truly great writer, and The Innocent is a very enjoyable novel. It’s the story of a man with two women and a child who isn’t his. He kills the child. It’s a very good story. ★ Translated by Clare del Mercaro.

Visconti Filmography As Assistane 1936 Les Bas-Fonds 1937 Une Partie de Campagne 1940 La Tosca As Director: 1942 Ossessione 1945 Giorni di Gloria — short 1947 La Terra Trema 1951 Bellissima 1951 Appunti su un Fatto di Cronaca — . short 1953 Siamo Donne — fifth episode 1954 Senso 1957 Le Notti Bianche (White Nights) 1960 Rocco e i Suoi Fratelli (Rocco and his Brothers) 1962 Boccaccio ’70 — Il Lavoro episode 1963 II Gattopardo (The Leopard) 1965 Vaghe Stella dell’Orsa (Sandra/Of a Thousand Delights) 1966 Le Streghe — Le Strega Bruciata Viva episode 1967 Lo Straniero (The Stranger) 1969 La Caduta delgi Dei (The Damned) 1971 Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice) 1973 Ludwig 1974 Gruppo di Famiglia in un Interno (Conversation Piece) 1976 L’Innocente

No, I don’t. I don’t believe there Cinema Papers, June-July — 41

ROBIN SPRY Jan Dawson 1968 wasn’t just the year of student unrest/revolutionary optimism in Europe, it also witnessed a number of conflicts between students (most frequently demonstrating against the Vietnam war) and police in the U.S. Of these, probably the most dramatic, and certainly — if only because of the number of on-the-spot television cameras — the most publicised, was the confrontation between riot police and demonstrators during the Democratic convention in Chicago.

The ensuing violence provided a convenient focus for the crisisconscience of the hero in Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool. Less for­ tuitously, it also lent political substance to the social questioning of the assorted drop-outs who comprised the dramatis personae of another feature film, Prologue. If only because its cast included Abbie Hoffman (subsequently mythologized as one of the Chicago Seven), Prologue would have been sure to rate as the more political of the two films.

It also had the advantage of a Canadian director, Robin Spry, a trained economist, whose moral commitment to the issues raised in Chicago was balanced by the relative detachment deriving from his status there as an “outside observer” . Where Medium Cool looked at the demonstration from the bourgeois end of the telescope (and used it to point a melodramatic warning about the dangers of non-involvement), Prologue was more concerned with its logic than with its drama. Its characters were, for the most part, participants in the protest movement; and by showing so much of their everyday lives and relationships (work, bedroom, commune), the film lucidly defined the choices open to them and the place that the State and the police played in their lives. Prologue was not only a critical success, it also achieved the rare feat for a Canadian film of obtain­ ing theatrical release outside Canada.

Since 1968, Robin Spry has been working for the National Film Board in Montreal, where his name has been more readily identified with film politics than with filmmaking. Until 1975, when a new film, Action, brought him back into the directorial limelight, winning him the top prize at the Nyon Festival (for social documentaries) and screenings in several other international festivals.

Action in fact grew out of another feature-length documentary, Reac­ tion. Both films are centrally concerned with the same real-life events that

inspired Michel Brault’s dramatic reconstruction, Les Ordres: the kid­ napping in Quebec of a Minister and a trade delegate (ostensibly by the Quebec separatists, although Spry’s film leaves the way open to more elaborate forms of conspiracy theory) and the subsequent invocation by the Trudeau government of the War Measures Act, under which a number of citizens were detained without specific charges being brought against them.

Like the confrontation in Chicago, the event was a shattering one for those involved, and for those who were merely spectators. Like Chicago, it illustrated the extent to which democratic rights can be violated in a nominally democratic society. If anything, the shock perhaps was greater, in that Canada is traditionally a more sober place than the U.S., and one which pays lip-service to the rhetorical British ideals of justice and fair play. Where Brault’s film concentrates more on the emotional shock of people dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, Spry’s is more concerned to demonstrate their political logic.

Action is a painstaking re-construction of the whole scenario, tracing from the beginning the history of the French Canadians as second-class citizens, showing us everywhere the evidence of their linguistic and political victimization. Though the film contains a remarkable, and remarkably long, interview with Trudeau, its strength, like that of Prologue, lies in its ability to convey the participants’ point-of-view without ever losing sight of the wider perspective — historical, political, economic and, indeed, international.

Action was one of four Canadian films on display at the 1975 Chicago Film Festival. (The others were: Murray Markowitz’s Recommendation for Mercy, Leonard Yakir’s The Mourning Suit and Jan Radar’s Lies My Father Told Me, though the latter was characteristically claimed by its U.S. distributor as an American film.)

Robin Spry was also in Chicago, for the first time since shooting Prologue^ He talked at length about the similarity of the filmmaking situa­ tion in Canada and Australia. His remarks are forceful and analytic enough to need no underlining; but perhaps their underlying pessimism will provide a timely check on the euphoria currently surrounding the resurgence of feature film production in Australia. One Picnic doesn’t make a summer.

From ‘Prologue’ to ‘Action

9

MW

Hippies gather in a park during the “Siege of Chicago” , 1968. Prologue.

42 — Cinema Papers, June-July

In front of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa during the October crisis of 1970. Action.

The funeral of Quebec Labour Minister, Pierre Laporte, who was supposedly killed

by Quebec separatists. Action.

Prologue.

What does it feel like being back in Chicago? Are you conscious of many changes?

I can’t really say much about the city, because when I was here in 1968, we were filming in the middle of crowds, day and night. And I didn’t get the general feel of the city. It’s certainly nice to be able to walk around and not .have to breathe tear-gas all the time . . . I really don’t know the city well enough to have any significant feel of it. It certainly seems to be a very bland sort of city, which I didn’t feel in ’68.

I am guessing, but I think in an e x tre m e fo rm it p ro b a b ly represents the general change I feel in North America. From a lot of social upheaval and looking around for “forms of revolution” , to quite the opposite: to a very conservative and nervous society where everyone is very job-oriented and scared about their future security. And it’s sort of the 50s with a vengeance. It certainly wasn’t that in 1968.

Do you think that in an odd way Canada is now taking over the socially-questioning role that the U.S. played in the 60s?

from the same problem(s), of how you in fact live a decent existence in a world that’s dominated by in­ stitutions and businesses that seem to be indecent.

Top left and left: The funeral of Pierre Laporte. Action.

Above: Demonstrators march on Parlia­ ment Hill protesting the government’s in­ vocation of the War Measures Act — a reaction to Laporte’s death. Action.

What sort of faith would you put in radical “ revolutionary” movements that are dependent on strong capitalist economies?

I think that’s a total contradic­ tion in terms. Are there such things?

What seemed like a radical questioning in the 60s seems now to have been very much tied to a boom economy that enabled people . . . . . . T h e r e f o re , it w a s n ’t revolutionary. It was like a luxury product. It was only possible because the economy was so alive and prosperous that it could afford a fringe element that could live off the society while questioning it.

Now that leeway seems to have dis­ appeared, and th erefo re the “revolutionary” movement seems largely to have disappeared. I think the people who are still fighting those battles are genuine revolu­ tionaries, whereas in the 60s they were dilettantes to a large extent

I had some sense of this while I Canada has the advantage of feeling very much under attack. was making Prologue, but there We’re sitting there with all that oil was real pleasure in it. It was nice and gas (and resources), all the to feel a questioning going on. things the U.S. is running out of. There was the naivete to think that Obviously, the U.S. is already tak­ it was actually going somewhere. It ing many of those things legally and was a pure delight; a source of economically. That situation is go­ genuine inspiration in the lives of ing to change, because Canada in anyone who was involved in it in a fact is also running out of these genuine way. It was a genuinely things. And I think the nationalism uplifting and fantastic, great, that is growing in Canada stems golden period. It was, therefore, from the fear that we feel very very hard to stop and question it in threatened as a country. For, the middle of the sort of ecstatic therefore, perhaps the first time, we flow that was going on. But I was feel that we are a country. And I an economist. I can remember think out of that comes a fair sitting and talking to the diggers in amount of questioning. I don’t San Francisco about economic know that the questions are exactly models that talked about what was the same, because the questions going on. So I think even then I had that were asked in the U.S. in 1968 a sense th a t econom ics had were also being asked in Canada, something to do with it. Inevitably, as it does with everything. You and in Europe.

The questions being asked in have to acknowledge it.

But, Canada is exactly the same Canada now are very national — whether Quebec national or Cana­ as the U.S. in the sense that when I dian national. Whereas in the U.S. take a film to a university in the questions being asked are very Canada, now, the students are con­ grandiose and general, about how servative and job-oriented. Even in to live beautifully. They all stem Quebec, there is much less political

activity than five or 10 years ago. I find it very discouraging because it means the big forces, the money people, the powers that exist in North America basically have won.

It means the hope of the 60s, that there could be a revolution through changes in attitude and consciousness, and that these could permeate the society, that hope has disappeared — although the Viet­ namese War has ended and all sort of excellent things have.resulted from what was happening in the sixties. So I don’t want to be totally pessimistic, but where it goes from here, I don’t know. To a certain ex­ tent, the war gave the energy to North America, to do those things.

It’s gone, the economic context has changed. It doesn’t look too good.

Are you more optimistic about the Quebec separatist movement, in that it is not predominantly a student movement, it is more broad-based and involves a large working-class, or, at best, trade-union element?

There are certainly all those elements. It’s very mixed and con­ fused. The trades unions in Canada are confused because many of them are branches of American unions and are largely controlled from outside the country. So there are all sorts of horrible, colonialist-type of contradictions in Canada. And Canada is probably the most colonized country in the world. We are colonized economically about roughly 100 per cent. At a media level, we are enormously colonized.

We even consider Tim e and R eader’s Digest as Canadian m a g azin e s. We get all the American television channels.

It’s impossible to live in Canada and not be brainwashed by the whole American media and cultural machine. That is tragic. You com­ pare that with Australia, which — as you know — is as far away as you can get; and they still have the problem. So imagine what it’s like in Canada, where we are literally next door. It’s hard not to be pessimistic there, too. To the point where you say that perhaps it’s in­ evitable in historical terms that the U.S. will simply absorb Canada, or invade Canada, or do whatever they have to do to have all the things they want in Canada. And that the battle for a Canadian nationalist is to keep separate for as long as you possibly can, and that then when the defeat comes, you hope that at least the things which are of value in Canada which do not exist in the U.S. will somehow infiltrate into the North American way of life.

But I think that’s a pretty minor, hopeless wish.

Isn’t that a bit like the 60s’ hope — thinking that by changing your consciousness, you can change your economic context?

Yes. And I don’t think the success would be even as great as that. However, the 60s did end the war at a certain level. How much of that was because of the “Movement” is obviously open to debate. In other words, it’s not a very big hope. And that’s where Quebec comes in, because if English Canada is absorbed, or taken over by the U.S., possibly French Canada could survive a lit­ tle longer just because of the fact of the French language, and a stronger sense of itself, its identity. Now in English Canada that struggle towards a sense of identity is definitely growing and, I think, is reflected in our films.

Continued on P.93 Cinema Papers, June-July — 43

GUIDE FOR THE AUSTRALIAN FILM PRODUCER:

PART 2

THE SCREENPLAY AGREEMENT In this second part of the 18-part series, Cinema Papers contributing editor, Antony I. Ginnane, and Melbourne solicitor Leon Gorr, turn their attention to the screenplay — the problems surrounding its acquisition and the development of it by a producer.

Part I of this series left our model producer with a property he has acquired; firstly via op­ tion and then upon exercise of the option by a literary purchase agreement. It now becomes necessary for the producer to contract with a writer to create a screenplay from the property he has acquired.

Normally, the screenplay will have to be com­ missioned from scratch, and it is concerning this agreement set out below as Precedent 3, “Agree­ ment to write a feature screenplay” , that we first turn our attention to.

It may be, of course, that the writer, from whom the producer has bought the basic proper­ ty, has already developed a full screenplay. If this is the case (subject to the need for rewriting or polishing sessions of the screenplay in collaboration with the to-be-chosen director), the producer should refer to Precedent 4 hereunder, “ Purchase agreement for a com­ pleted screenplay” .

The agreement to write a feature screenplay traditionally provides for four separate stages, each of which is subject to the producer’s approval before the next stage is begun and further monies committed.

The first stage is usually referred to as the treatment. In 25 to 35 pages, the screenwriter sets out the basic narrative thread of the story; the characters involved in the plot development; any relevant research background material — in short the general tone and tenor of the proposed script. (See Form 2: “ Page from a treatment” .)

Stage 2 is the first draft screenplay, which, depending on the intended or eventual running time of the film and the writing speed of the author, can run anything between 100 and 250 pages and take about three months to write.

(Form 3: “ Page of first draft screenplay” .)

Dialogue is written; scenes, locations and characters, as well as camera movements and 44 — Cinema Papera, June-July

action, are fully described.

Stage 3 is the revised or second draft screenplay. This will be the result of a pooling of suggestions and criticisms of the first draft screenplay made by the producer, the director (if he has been chosen) and various other indepen­ dent script assessors and marketing consultants the producer may employ. This second rewrite should take between three and six weeks.

The final stage (although it is not uncommon for there to be an intervening period for a third and fourth revised draft), is a revision and polish session where the director and scriptwriter work together, supervised by the producer, to create the final shooting script. This may take two to four weeks.

Producers, in establishing contractual relations with the screenwriter, may find themselves dealing with members of the Australian Writers’ Guild and may be required to abide by the minimum payment stipulations of the union. Not all aspirant writers in Australia are Guild members, however, and here the producer will be negotiating according to the respective bargaining strengths of the con­ tracting parties. In any event, the Guild minimum may only be a base for the more successful writers’ demands, and a writer with a “track record” may be able to ask for substan­ tially more.

A good rule of thumb is that the total cost of screenplay and literary purchase price should not exceed five per cent of the budget in films costing $100,000 or less, and should not exceed 10 per cent of the budget on more expensive productions. Clearly, this is a rule that could easily be broken if one’s literary purchase was a best seller; but deals of that sort involve a whole series of individual variables that are beyond the scope of this series to deal with. In any event, it is probably premature given the present development of the local industry.

The screenplay agreement set out in Precedent dent 3, frequently provides for the producer to pay the writer fractions of the total agreed price at intervals roughly linked to the four stages of development of the screenplay (outlined above) and allows the producer to terminate the writer’s services at any of these stages. More experienced international writers will be wary of this gambit

as producers have been known to use it to allow them to pay only 50 per cent of the total screenplay cost, merely by failing to require further revisions of the screenplay — yet going on to make the film, based on, say, the first draft without any alteration to it at all.

Again, bargaining power comes into play here. Some low budget productions may provide for a portion, or even all of the writer’s payment, to be deferred and paid from first returns to the producer. Both writer and producer here will be keen to get a film of exploitable potential, for which there is a small amount of funds available, off the ground.

Conversely, a successful writer, in addition to a fee, may demand a percentage of the gross or net profits. (These terms will be discussed in a later article.)

Some terms of the screenplay agreement are worthy of comment. Normally the producer will want to have delivery dates for the drafts and polished script set out in the contract, as interest will be accruing on money he has borrowed, and as the preproduction moves towards completion a multi-layered interknit of deadlines and com­ mitments will all be put in jeopardy if the final shooting script is not ready in time.

The structured payment basis, referred to above and set out below in Schedule A to Prece­ dent 3, is also helpful in the event of the death or long term hospitalization of the writer, as it does not mean that an entire screenplay payment has been made to a writer, who in the event, has not delivered a finished screenplay.

It may be wise to have a clause providing that, if the writer does not complete the final screenplay on time, he is required to return some or all of the monies paid to him.

The question of screen credit has not yet become,^ in Australia the vexed issue it has become overseas. Doubtless it will do so as the industry develops. Schedule A to Precedent 3 provides a form of agreement as to credit, but it is not uncommon, and we will discuss this further in considering the problems of con­ tracting with talent, for some writers to demand detailed clauses as to when, and when not, their name is to appear in advertising in the different media.

A writer may, for example, demand his name

FILM BUSINESS

be included in all press advertising over a certain size. It is not uncommon in European and U.S., trade paper advertisements for details of new and upcoming releases to include at the top or bottom of the ad the disclaimer: “This advertise­ ment is for announcement purposes only and does not purport to set out contractual respon­ sibilities to talent” , or words similar. (Further, some writers will be granted by producers special billing in their home territory. This is es­ pecially common in European co-productions.)

In the U.S., the Writers’ Guild has a semi­ official tribunal tq settle disputes as to credit for writers and its jurisdiction is frequently invoked when one writer may be involved on the First draft screenplay; another on the second; etc.

Frequently in European productions, the direc­ tor may get a shared writer’s credit even though he may have contributed to the script little more than ideas at the final polishing sessions.

Precedent 4 hereunder, provides a sample agreement for a purchase by a producer of an already completed screenplay. Again, the

PRECEDENT 3: AGREEMENT TO WRITE A FEATURE SCREENPLAY THIS SCREENPLAY AGREEMENT made this day of between (hereinafter called “the producer") of the one part and (hereinafter called "the writer") of the other part.

Whereas the producer and the writer have agreed that the writer be engaged to write a screenplay entitled ( h e r e in a fte r c a lle d “ th e s c re e n p la y ’ ’ ) b a se d on th e n o ve l by (or based on the theme of ) and suitable as the basis of a motion picture (hereinafter called "the motion picture” ) which the producer wishes to produce.

NOW THIS AGREEMENT WITNESSETH that the parties hereto have mutually agreed as follows: INTERPRETATION 1. in the interpretation of this agreement (a) The term "motion picture" as used herein shall mean and include silent motion pictures, sound and talking motion pictures, motion pictures produced, transmitted or exhibited with or accompanied by sound and voice recording, transmitting or reproducing devices and all development and improvements of such devices

■

FORM 2: Page from a treatment

K I

respective bargaining power of the parties may cised his option and made a literary purchase via require amendments to the basic agreement to Precedents 1 and 2, will need to have executed if be made. Some writers will require that they re­ the material bought has been previously publish­ tain the right to publishing the screenplay. The ed in some form. The publisher deposes to the producer may require that the writer be preclud­ fact that he intends to assert no Film, radio, ed from publishing the script until the release of television or allied rights in the property. the film, so that he can control the advertising Precedent 6, “Assignment of Rights in a campaign. Further, the writer may require the Screenplay” , will be required by producers using right to do the paperback novelization of the either Precedents 3 or 4 and should accompany script, often put out as publicity concurrent with same. the Film’s release, or, at least, he may demand Producers using Precedents 3 or 4 may desire, First option and perhaps a royalty whether he in in addition to cash or deferred payments to the fact does it or not. The writer may try to retain author, to provide for the author to share in the stage dramatic rights, television series rights or gross or net profits of the Film. This has been sequel rights or, alternatively, to obtain some ex­ alluded to above. tra compensation if the producer exercises these The definition of gross and net receipts and rights. Normally, this claim for separation of profits in Films is highly complicated and will rights will only occur when the producer is ac­ vary from Film to Film and contract to contract. quiring a completed screenplay, as per Precedent One form of definition will be provided in the 4; not if he commissions a screenplay from a next part of this series—in Precedent 7: “The property he already owns, as per Precedent 3.

Production-Distribution Agreement — and the Precedent 5 is a standard publisher’s producer will be able to append the relevant quitclaim which the producer, after he has exer­ clauses to Precedents 3 or 4. and all motion picture productions of every kind produced, tran­ revisions to the second draft desired by the producer delivered to smitted or exhibited by any means now known or unknown. the writer within 21 days after receipt by the producer of the se­ (b) The term “ photoplay" means a feature-length photoplay. cond draft require the writer to prepare and deliver to the producer a third draft of the screenplay (hereinafter call "the third (c) The term “ screenplay" means the final script (as represented on draft” ). the screen) with individual scenes, full dialogue and camera setups, together with such prior treatment, basic adaption, con­ (b) The writer shall within 28 days of the receipt of the notice of third tinuity, scenario, dialogue, added dialogue or gagging as shall be draft deliver to the producer a third draft containing such revisions as the producer shall request. used in and represent substantial contributions to the final script.

DRAFTS OF THE SCREENPLAY FOURTH DRAFT 5. (a) The producer may by written notice of fourth draft specifying FIRST DRAFT revisions to the third draft desired by the producer delivered to the 2. Forthwith upon the execution of this agreement the writer shall com­ writer within 21 days after receipt by the producer of the third draft mence work on the first draft of the screenplay (hereinafter called “the require the writer to prepare and deliver to the producer a fourth first draft") and will utilize his best efforts in preparation of the first draft of the screenplay (hereinafter called “the fourth draft"). draft and shall deliver same to the producer within 90 days of the date hereof. (b) The writer shall within 21 days of the receipt of the notice of fourth SECOND DRAFT draft deliver to the producer a fourth draft containing such revisions as the producer shall request.

3. (a) The producer may by written notice of second draft specifying 4DDITIONAL SERVICES revisions to the first draft desired by the producer delivered to the 6. The producer may by 28 days written notice of additional services re­ writer within 10 days after receipt by the producer of the first draft quired setting out the commencement date of each additional service require the writer to prepare and deliver to the producer a second require the writer to perform rewriting and polishing services prior to draft of the screenplay (hereinafter called “ the second draft") and during the period of the production of the motion picture and the (b) The writer shall within 42 days of the receipt of the notice of se­ ' cond draft deliver to the producer a second draft containing such writer hereby agrees to perform such services to the best of his ability.

CONSIDERATION révisons as the producer shall request.

THIRD DRAFT 7. In full consideration of all services to be performed by the writer 4. (a) The producer may by written notice of third draft specifying hereunder, for all rights, licences, privileges and property hereby con­ veyed, and for all warranties, representations and covenants herein made by the writer, the producer agrees to pay to the writer the sum of ($ ) payable (a) Upon execution hereof the sum of $ (b) Upon receipt by the producer of the first draft (if he shall have so " " " " " ......... | requested it) the sum of $ (c) Upon receipt by the producer of the second draft (if he shall have so requested it) the sum of $ FORM 3: Page of first draft screenplay (d) Upon receipt by the producer of the third draft (if he shall have so requested it) the sum of $ (e) Upon receipt by the producer of the fourth draft (if he shall have so requested it) the sum of $ (f) On the first day of shooting of the said motion picture the sum of Pete gives in to ego...

The f e a r o f b e in g ca u g h t by o n e ’ s lo v e d one in a c o m p ro m isin g s i t u a t i o n

S

is

f r e q u e n t ly an in g r e d ie n t

PETE Well...

d aydream s and seem s t o h ave i t s o r i g i n s in s i m i l a r c h ild h o o d

i

1 mean I have had a bit

of practice you know...

I

e x p e r ie n c e s.

■

h a l f a s l e e p , h a l f awake s t a t e and i n e v i t a b l y

in t o th e f o l l o w i n g s c e n e .

fl

I'm a t a h o u se p a r t y i n a huge c o u n tr y h o u s e .

Someone h a s s u g g e s te d

H

we p l a y h id e and s e e k and I ' v e found ray way i n t o a cupboard u p s t a i r s .

DICK

E m ily : " O fte n when 1 make lo v e I d r i f t o f f in t o a s o r t o f

(smiling slyly)

You're not kidding... hey, what 1:

f l . I t ' s o n e o f t h o s e o l d f a s h io n e d t a l l c l o s e t s w ith a m ir r o r in th e m

d o o r , b u t t h e m ir r o r i s

B

lo o k i n g f o r me s e e o n l y a r e f l e c t i o n .

t w o - s id e d ...

fl

a b i g handsom e b r u t e who a lw a y s lo o k s l i k e som eone

Í l

I can s e e o u t bu t th e p e o p le

I ' v e f a n c ie d

r e c e n t l y and d i s c o v e r s me ( I make a n o i s e w h ich g i v e s th e game a w ay).

fl

He s l i p s i n s i d e and s t a r t s t o se d u c e me in th e cramped c o n f in e s

fl

o f t h e c u p b o a rd .

fl

it's

P e o p le d r i f t by o u t s i d e lo o k in g f o r u s .

PETE

1

What?

.j

One o f t h e s e a r c h e r s a p p e a r s ,

fl

about that tent show eh ?

DICK

j

C a s tle m a in e - The M a g ic ia n 's

\

w i£ e " ’

•

]

P e t e s m i l e s s l o w l y - D ic k

^

;

i s d i g g i n g him in t h e r i b s

S fl

I know

o n ly a m a tte r o f tim e b e f o r e my husband a p p e a r s and y e t d e s ir e CUT T O :-

fl

f o r th e s t r a n g e r o v e r c o m e s t h i s f e a r .

An ad d ed t h r i l l i s

th a t I EXT:

know we m ust n o t make e v e n th e s l i g h t e s t n o i s e b e c a u s e i t w i l l le a d t o ou r d i s c o v e r y .

Y o u 'v e p r o b a b ly g u e s s e d by n o w . . . j u s t a s

CASTLEMAINE TENT SHOW - FLASHBACK

r' The t o r c h e s o u t s i d e

o u r cu p b o a rd lo v e r e a c h e s a m in d -b en d in g c lim a x my husband a p p e a r s o u ts id e .

I can’ t s t i f l e

t o th e m ir r o r .

c

1976

a s c r e a m , he h e a r s and h i s f a c e loom s up

S u d d e n ly I'm back in b ed .

TLN F ilm P r o d u c t io n s Pcy Led. "Fantasm "

11

|

GRANTS OF RIGHTS 8. (a) The writer agrees that the screenplay (and as hereinafter used in this agreement the term "screenplay” shall include the first draft, the second draft, if any; the third draft, if any; the fourth draft, if any; and any re-writing and polishing of such. If any) shall become the property of the producer who shall, for this purpose, be deem­ ed to be the author thereof, the writer acting hereunder as an employee of the producer, and the producer shall have the right to obtain copyright thereof and for the motion picture, and to renew such copyright, in his own name and for his own benefit, free of any claim thereto by the writer. (b) Without limitation of the foregoing, the producer shall have the right, in his sole discretion, to use, adapt, change and re-arrange the screenplay, or any part thereof, and to interpolate therein, or combine the same with, any other work by any other person(s), and to vend, copy, publish whether as a screenplay, novel, or in any other form reproduce, record, transmit, broadcast by radio and (live, filmed or taped) television, perform, photograph with or without sound (including spoken words, dialogue and music syn­ chronously recorded), and to communicate the same by any means now known or hereafter devised, either publicly and for profit or otherwise, and the producer shall, except as may be ex­ pressly provided herein, be entitled to own all proceeds realized from any use, sale, licence, lease or other exploitation whatsoever of the screenplay, or any part thereof, in any form. (c) Upon completion of this agreement the writer shall execute and deliver to the producer In connection with any materials submitted pursuant to this agreement by them to the producer hereunder, a certificate or certificates in substantially the following form: "I hereby certify that I wrote the manuscript hereto attached, as an employee of , pursuant to an agreement dated as of the , in performance of my duties thereunder, and In the regular course of my employment and that , Is the author thereof, with the right to make such changes therein and such uses thereof, as It may determine as such author. “ IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereto set my hand this day of , 19 " ' and will execute such assignments or other instruments as the producer may from time to time deem necessary or desirable to evidence, establish, maintain, protect, enforce or defend his right or title in or to any such material. The writer hereby appoints the producer his true and lawful attorney-in-fact irrevocably to execute, verify, acknowledge and deliver any and all such Instruments or documents which he shall fall or refuse to execute, verify, acknowledge or deliver. _ (d) The writer hereby grants to the producer the right to use, and to license, cause or permit others to use, his name, likeness and biography In connection with any use, version or adaptation which the producer may make of the screenplay In the production of the motion picture, or In connection with the advertising, publicity, promotion or exploitation thereof (whether or not the motion pic­ ture shall be substantially based upon the screenplay) and In any commercial advertising tie-ups and commercial publicity tie-ups which also serve to advertise, publicize, promote or exploit the motion picture, provided that without the writer's consent no such tie-ups shall contain any express endorsements.

th e t e n t f l i c k e r

a c r o ss a b illb o a r d :" WALDO - MAGICIAN EXTRAORDINAIRE -

B

and ESMERALDA - THE SPIRIT OF THE

Í

TIGRESS"

4

The SPRUIKER i s

in f u l l f l i g h t .

B e s id e him a so le m n W aldo, f a k e

!

sv a m i and E sm e r a ld a ,

j

in u s u a l le o t a r d

b u t n o t h in g f a k e a b o u t h e r o b v io u s a ssets.

The t r i o s t a n d s on a s m a ll p la t f o r m b e f o r e a s e a o f d u s t y h a t s .

c 1973

Q u est F ilm s P t y . L t d . :

"True S to r y o f Eskim o N e ll"

Cinema Papers, June-July — 45

FILM BUSINESS

WRITER'S REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES 9. The writer hereby represents and warrants as follows: (a) Except as to any additions or alterations that may be suggested, made or caused to be made by the producer and/or his deslgnee(s), he will be the sole author of the screenplay and of all the material contained therein. All of such material will be wholly original with him and not copied in whole or in part from any work other than the novel; and such material will not violate, conflict with or infringe upon, and the use thereof as herein contemplated will not violate, conflict with or Infringe upon, any rights whatsoever (including without limitation any copyright, literary, dramatic, photoplay or common law rights or rights of privacy), or constitute % I'bel or slander of any persons, firm or corporation (b) The writer hereby warrants that he has the right to enter Into this agreement, to perform the services contemplated hereby and to grant all rights herein granted by it, and no provision for his employment or services hereunder or for the use of his name, likenesses or biographies as herein contemplated will violate, con­ flict with or infringe upon any rights whatsoever, of any person firm or corporation. (c) The writer’s representations and warranties herein contained as to material in the screenplay shall apply only to such of the material used therein or the motion picture as the writer shall have con­ tributed to the screenplay or the motion picture, and shall not app­ ly to any extraneous matter Inserted therein by the producer, Its associates, successors, licensees, assigns or others WRITER'S INDEMNITY 10. (a) The writer hereby indemnifies and holds harmless the producer, his associates, successors, licensees and assigns, from any and ali claims, demands, suits, losses, costs, expenses (including" reasonable attorneys’ fees), damages or recoveries (Including any amounts paid in settlement), which may be obtained against, im­ posed upon or suffered by the producer, his associates, successors, licensees, and assigns, by reason of the breach by the writer of any of the representations, warranties or covenants herein contained. Notice of any claim will be promptly transmitted to the writer. (b) For the purposes of sub-paragraph 10 (a) hereof the distributor of the motion picture shall be deemed to be an "associate” of the producer and shall be entitled to the full benefit of the Indemnity to the extent that they extend to the associates of the producer PRODUCER'S INDEMNITY 11. The producer hereby indemnifies and holds harmless the writer, his heirs, executors and assigns, from any and all claims, demands, suits, msses, costs, expenses (Including reasonable attorneys' fees),’ damages, or recoveries (Including any amounts paid in settlement) which may be obtained against, Imposed upon or suffered by the w riter, his heirs, executors or assigns by reason of material inserted in the screenplay by the writer at the producer’s request. Notice of any claim will be promptly transmitted to the producer.

UNIQUE SERVICES 12. The writer acknowledges that the services agreed to be performed by him hereunder are of a unique, extraordinary and Intellectual character Involving high skill and giving them peculiar value, the loss of which cannot be reasonably or adequately compensated in damages in an action at law, and that a breach of this agreement by either of them will cause the producer Irreparable injury and damage.

Any remedies which the producer may have under this or any other provision of this agreement, or otherwise, at law or In equity, shall be cumulative.

■ CREDITS 13. The producer agrees to give the writer screen and advertising credit in the following form: (a) Screen credit for the screenplay authorship of a feature-length photoplay will be worded "Screenplay By" or "Screenplay” . (b) Screen credit for the screenplay will not be shared by more than two writers and In no case will the names of more than three be used, provided, however, that two established writing teams recognized and employed as such and of not more than two members each may share screen credit for screenplay. The inten­ tion and spirit of the award of credits being to emphasize the presltge and importance of the screenplay achievement, the one, two or at most three writers, or two teams, chiefly responsible for the completed work will be the only screenwriters to receive screenplay credit. (c) . The only exception to the provisions of sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) hereto shall be: (i) Musicals. (¡i) Pictures on which one writer (or a team) writes both the original story and screenplay. In this case the credit may be worded “ by", “ Original story and screenplay by", or "Original screenplay by” . (d) No production executive will be entitled to share In the screenplay authorship screen credit unless he does the screenplay writing en­ tirely without the collaboration of any other writer.

14. (a) No casual or inadvertent failure of the producer to comply with paragraphs 13 (a), (b), (c) and (d) hereof and no breach by any other person, firm or corporator of any contract requiring obser­ vance of such credit requirements, shall be deemed a breach of this agreement on the part of the producer. (b) The rights and remendles of the writer in the event of a breach of paragraphs 13(a), (b), (c) and (d) shall be limited to his rights, if any, to recover damages in any action at law, and In no event shall he be entitled by reason of any such breach to terminate this agreement or to enjoin or restrain the distribution or exhibition of the motion picture.

ASSIGNMENT 15. The producer may assign his rights hereunder to any person, firm or corporation, provided however that no such assignment shall release the producer of any of his obligations hereunder to the writer unless . the assignee shall be a recognized distributor of motion pictures, or a motion picture company, as that term is understood in the motion pic­ ture industry, or a television network, as that term Is understood In the television Industry, and the assignee shall assume all of the producer obligations hereunder In writing.

MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS 16. (a) This agreement Is made In the State of Victoria and shall in all respects be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of that State applicable to contracts made and entirely per­ formed therein.

• ■ "■ ' - ?. • (b) If for any reason any provisions of this agreement shall conflict with any statute, law, regulation or ordinance, contrary to which the parties have no legal right to contract, or any applicable collec­ tive bargaining agreement or union or guild agreement, then the latter shall prevail, but in such event the provisions of this agree­ ment shall be modified only to the extent necessary to bring it within such requirements, and (as modified) this agreement shalf continue in full force and effect. (c) No waiver by either party hereto of any breach by the otner party hereto of any covenant or condition of this agreement shall be deemed a waiver of any other breach (whether prior to or subse­ quent) of the same or any other covenant or condition of this or any other agreement. (d) This agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the par­ ties hereto and cannot be modified except by a written Instrument signed by the parties hereto. No representative of the producer has any authority to make any representation or promise in con­ nection with this agreement or the subject matter thereof which is not contained herein, and the writer agrees that he had not ex­ ecuted this agreement in reliance upon any such representation or promise.

This agreement, and all rights and obligations hereunder, shall be binding upon, and inure to the benefit of, the parties hereto and their respective successors, licensees and assigns. (e) Any notice, request, instrument or other document to be given hereunder by either party hereto to the other shall be In writing and shall be delivered personally or sent by registered or certified mail (postage prepaid) or by telegraph or cable (fee prepaid) to such party hereto at their address hereinabove given, or at such other address as such party hereto shall have designated by notice duly

46 — Cinema Papers, June-July

given In the manner above provided. Notice given by mall shall be deemed given upon the mailing thereof; notice by telegraph or cable shall be deemed given upon delivery to the telegraph or cable office for transmission.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF the parties hereto have hereunto set their handsthe day and year first hereinbefore written Signed for and on behalf of \ the producer in the \ presence of:. j Signed by the writer ) In the presence of \

PRECEDENT 4: AGREEMENT FOR SALE OF A COMPLETED SCREENPLAY

THIS AGREEMENT made the day of 1976 BETWEEN Joe Melbourne (hereinafter called the “ seller") of the one part AND ABC Film P/L (hereinafter called the "buyer") of the other part.

WHEREAS the seller Is the writer of the completed screenplay titled (hereinafter called "the screenplay” ) and the seller and the buyer have agreed that the seller shall sell to the buyer and the buyer shall buy from the seller the screenplay on the terms and conditions as hereinafter set out NOW THIS AGREEMENT WITNESSETH as follows: 1. THE seller hereby sells and the buyer hereby buys'from the seller the screenplay and all rights of any and every nature whatsoever therein free and clear of all claims and encumbrances whatsoever together with (a) The original story and all rights of any and every nature what­ soever thereunder; (b) The treatment and all rights of any and every nature whatsoever thereunder; (c) In all countries of the world where copyright protection is available , all common law and statutory copyrights and all renewals thereof and all other rights in and to the story, treatment and screenplay and all parts thereof without limitation or restriction; (d) All of the right, title and Interest of the seller in and to all proper­ ties, Interests and claims which the seller at any time had or now has relating to the production of the movie or any part thereof; (e) Annexed hereto and marked with the letters 'A', ‘B‘ and 'C' are true copies of the said story, treatment and screenplay referred to herein.

2. IN full consideration for all rights and property herein granted by the seller to the buyer and for full performance by the seller of all Its obligations under this agreement the buyer shall pay the following to the seller: (a) The sum of $10,000 (ten thousand dollars) upon execution of this agreement by all parties, receipt of which amount the seller hereby acknowledges; (b) The sum of $5000 (five thousand dollars) upon the first day of shooting of the motion picture or the screenplay (hereinafter call­ ed the "motion picture") whenever that may be.

3. The seller hereby covenants warrants and represents to the buyer that the statements setiout hereunder are true and correct In all respects. (a) The seller conceived an original story for a feature length motion picture dealing in part with a p ad of vampire kangaroos attacking the inhabitants of a cattle station in Western Victoria in the 1860s. (b) The seller prepared a treatment of the story for the motion picture. (c) The seller wrote a feature length screenplay of the treatment for the motion picture. (d) All common law and statutory copyrights and renewals thereof . and all other rights throughout the world in the story treatment and screenplay are the sole and exclusive property of the seller, free and clear of all claims and encumbrances and no litigation is pending or proposed concerning the story, treatm ent or screenplay. (e) The seller did not adapt any of the story, treatment or screenplay (hereinafter collectively called "the property") from any other literary, dramatic or other work of any kind, nature or description; nor did he copy or use in the property the plot, scenes, sequence or story of any other literary, dramatic or other work. No part of the property infringes upon or violates the common law or statutory rights of any other literary, dramatic or other work. No part of the property Invades the right of privacy or otherwise Infringes upon the common law, statutory or contractual rights of any person, firm or corporation.

4. THE buyer shall be under no obligation whatsoever to exercise or put to use any of the rights acquired hereunder.

5. The seller grants to the buyer the free and unrestricted right, at the buyers own cost and expense, to Institute in the name of and on behalf of the seller any and all suits and proceedings, in law or in equity, to enjoin and restrain any Infringement of the rights herein granted. The seller does hereby assign and set over unto the buyer any and all cause and causes of action arising by reason of such Infringement or Infringements. The seller does hereby assign and set over to the buyer any and all recoveries obtained in any such action and said recoveries, less all costs and expenses (including attorneys' fees), shall be Included in gross receipts of the motion picture. The seller agrees that it will not compromise, settle or in any manner interfere with any litigation, if brought, and the buyer does hereby agree to in­ demnify and save harmless the seller from any costs or damages that may arise by, reason of any such suits or proceedings.

6. The seller agrees to use Its best efforts to execute and deliver to the buyer, and to procure execution and delivery by others to the buyer, any other and further Instruments necessary to convey, assign and copyright the rights herein granted to any country throughout the world but w ithout making any representations, warranties or covenants with respect to the availability of such copyright except as expressed in this agreement. If it shall be necessary by the laws of any country that copyright registration must be acquired in the name of the seller, the seller hereby authorizes the buyer to apply at its own ex­ pense for such copyright in the name of the seller and, in such event the seller shall and does hereby assign and transfer to the buyer under said copyright the rights granted herein. The seller further agrees, upon request of the buyer, duly to execute, acknowledge, procure and deliver to the buyer such short form assignments as may be requested by the buyer for the purpose of recording in Australia or elsewhere. If the seller shall, upon the buyer’s request, fail so to execute and deliver or procure the execution and delivery of such additional assignments, the buyer is hereby authorized to execute and/or procure the same in the name of seller and as his attorney-in-fact.

7. All remedies accorded herein or otherwise available to either of the parties hereto shall be cumulative, and the pursuit of any one such remedy shall not be deemed a waiver of any other or different remedy or relief to which such party might otherwise be entitled in law or In equity. No waiver by either party hereof of the non-performance or breach of any term, condition or obligation to be performed by or binding upon the other party shall be a waiver of any subsequent non­ performance or breach of the same, or any other term, condition or obligation.

8. The seller does hereby and shall at all times indemnify and save harmless the buyer, his subsidiary and affiliated companies, his of­ ficers, directors and employees and his exhibitors, licensees and assignees of any and from any and all claims, demands and causes of action, or any thereof, arising out of any breach of seller’s representa­ tions, warranties, indem nifications or covenants made In the agreement.

9. This agreement shall be assignable by the parties hereto and shall be binding upon and shall inure to the benefit of the parties hereto, their respective successors and assigns forever. ~ 10. This agreement shall term inate and supersede all previous arrangements, understandings, representations, or agreements, either verbal or written, between the parties hereto, and shall repre­

sent the entire agreement between them. This agreement shall not be modified or amended except by an Instrument In writing signed by duly authorized officers of seller and buyer.

11. Any notice, request, instrument or other document to be given hereunder by either party hereto to the other shall be in writing and shall be delivered personally or sent by registered or certified mail (postage prepaid) or by telegraph or cable (fee prepaid) to such party hereto at their address hereinabove given, or at such other address as such party hereto shall have designated by notice duly given in the manner above provided. Notice given by mall shall be deemed given upon the mailing thereof; notice by telegraph or cable shall be deemed given upon delivery to the telegraph or cable office for transmission.

12. The proper law of this contract shall be the law of the State of Victoria.

13. This agreement, including all of the foregoing provisions and all ex­ hibits made a part hereof, expresses the entire understanding and agreement of the parties hereto and replaces any and all prior agreements or understandings, whether written or oral, relating in any way to the subject matter or this agreement. This agreement cannot be modified, amended or supplemented except by a written instrument or instruments executed by each of the parties herefo.

14. Any dispute between the parties to this agreement shall be settled ac­ cording to the provisions of the Arbitration Act 1958 Victoria.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF the parties have hereunto set their hands the day and the year first hereinbefore written Signed by the seller ) in the presence of: ) Signed by the buyer ) in the presence of: )

PRECEDENT 5: PUBLISHER’S LETTER OF QUITCLAIM

Director, ABC Film P/L Sirs: You have advised us that you are entering into an agreement with Joe Melbourne, the author of the story "Cinema Papers" pursuant to which there are being assigned to you by the said author certain motion picture, television and allied rights in and to the said story. The said story first appeared in the July 1974 Issue of "Tales of Outback Horror" magazine of which we are the publisher and copyright in the story was included in the copyright secured on fhe said magazine by us.

This is to advise you that we assert no rights In and make no claim to mo­ tion picture, radio or television rights in the said story.

We further advise that we will make no objection to you, your successors or assigns for the purpose of advertising and exploiting motion picture ver­ sions of the said story or otherwise for the purposes of advertising and ex­ ploiting the rights to be acquired by you, publishing and using (and authorizing others so to do) in press books, trade and fan magazines, promotional booklets, excerpts, summaries of dialogue and serializations and novelizatlons of the said story or any motion picture version, provided however that none of the said excerpts, dialogue summaries, serializations or novelizatlons shall exceed words in length.

Yours faithfully, — Per - XYZ PUBLISHING COMPANY N ote:(1): The amount of wordage Inserted in the quitclaim will depend on whether or not the publishers are prepared to allow full paperback novelization of the motion picture story.

(2) Some producers may feel happier if the above quitclaim was declared or sworn by a relevant officer of the publishing company as a statutory declaration or affidavit, before either a JP or Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Victoria for taking affidavits and declarations as the case may be.

PRECEDCENT

6:

ASSIGNMENT SCREENPLAY

OF

RIGHTS

IN

THIS ASSIGNMENT made the day of between (hereinafter called "the assignor") of the one part and (hereinafter called “the assignee’) of the other part WHEREAS the assignor Is the proprietor of all motion picture and televi­ sion rights (and other rights as hereinafter set out) in and to the literary (hereinafter called “the rights” ) and/or dramatic work (hereinafter called ’ ’ th e w o r k ” ) e n t it le d w r it t e n by and whereas the assignor and the assignee have agreed that for the consideration hereinafter set out the assignor shall assign and transfer to the assignee the rights NOW THIS ASSIGNMENT WITNESSETH as follows: 1. In consideration of the sum of ($ ) now paid by the assignee to the assignor the assignor hereby assigns to the assignee the rights to hold the same unto the assignee absolutely.

2. Included In said motion picture and television rights are: sound, musical and talking motion picture rights; free home, pay, subscrip­ tion, theatre, CATV and all other television rights; cassettes, cartridges, and so-called ” EVR" “ Cartrlvsion" and other similar system rights; transmission from recordings; the right to record and reproduce sounds, music and speech, taken from the said work or other sources, accompanying motion pictures and/or television progress based on the compositlon(s) and separately as commercial phonograph records; filmed and taped television rights; commercial tie-up rights, and the right to print and publish synopses revised and/or abridged versions of the said work and any motion picture and/or television versions thereof which publicise or advertise such versions thereof which publicise or advertise such versions together with all copyright of the work (and in any renewals or extensions thereof) together with the sole and exclusive right to use, adapt, change, translate, add to, and take from said work and the title in the making of motion picture and television productions of every kind or character to lease, vend, exploit and exhibit the same throughout the world and to copyright the same in assignee's name.

3. (a) The assignor agrees, insofar as he now or later may have the power or authority so to do, to cause renewals of any copyright in the work duly to be obtained, and the motion picture and television rights herein granted are now assigned to assignee for the renewal term and during any extension further of like documents of confir­ mation of assignment will be given to assignee If requested. (b) The assignor hereby appoints assignee as his irrevocable attorney-ln-fact, with the right, but not the obligation, to execute and file all such documents and to do all acts necessary for the ob­ taining of such extensions or renewals and evidencing the con­ tinuation of the same rights in the assignee for such renewed or extended terms as are now vested in assignee.

4. The assignee, and his successors and assigns, are hereby empowered to bring, prosecute, defend and appear in suits, actions and proceedings of any nature or concerning said copyright or its renewals, or concerning any infringement thereof, and particularly in­ fringement of or interference with any of the motion picture and televi­ sion rights now granted under said copyright or renewals, in the name of the assignor. Any recovery of costs from infringement or violation of any copyright or its renewals, so far as it arises from any violation of motion picture and television rights hereby assigned, is now assigned to and shall be paid to said assignee and his successors and assigns.

IN WITNESS whereof the parties have hereunto set their hands the day and year first hereinbefore written Signed by the \ assignor In the j presence of j Signed by the i assignee in the . ( presence of j +

With “ Return”, and indeed all David Greig is an experimental filmmaker currently working your films, you are concerned with as an editor at Kestral Film Productions, Melbourne. In the cycles — not only life cycles, but the following interview, conducted by Kevin Anderson, Greig dis­ cyclical recurrence of events . . .

Yes. Return was a reaction to the idea that time doesn’t really exist as we think it does, rather that there are different parallels of time runn­ ing together. The film was about what would happen if you could really believe what a lot of people say, and what you half believe yourself, — that everything is con­ tained within the most minute things, like a time interval. That is to say, that every moment contains all time, every leaf contains all trees — things like this. If one could real­ ly grasp that and believe it in­ tuitively, rather than intellectually.

It is much easier to say it, than it is to feel it.

So the film was about how this woman, whose life has passed her, comes to the realization of the in­ finite existing in everything. And because she has really achieved that belief, time really has no meaning for her and her life is still going on — as it always did.

But looking back to when I made the film, I realize that it was really a wish rather than a belief: it was more of an i f film than say a this is the way it is one.

So, you are interweaving her pre­ sent life with her past . . .

Yes. It’s like she is not really a cusses three o f his films: “ Return” (1972), “ W itness” (1973) living entity at all. and “ Ceremony” (1975).

The following are brief plot synopses for those unfamiliar Well, one gets that feeling from with Greig’s work:* watching the film, but it really goes “ Return” : The ruined shell of a farmhouse gradually reveals beyond that — something like an the unseen presence of a woman — a statue experiences a other-worldly quality . . . frenzy of visions, and undergoes an eventual transformation.

The statue in the film is really “ W itness” : Glimpses o f life in the coastal township o f Apollo just a symbol of the presence Bay; a small world echoing with the rhythms of waves, a everybody puts into wherever they children’s roundabout, seagulls and the presence of an observer. move in time and space. I like to “ Ceremony” : An artist, finishing a painting, is drawn into a think that people leave some trace ritualized encounter with an unknown woman — a fantastic of themselves. So, there is no attempt to say that it represents her search and meeting which contain both the fruit of earlier work soul, or anything like that; it’s just a and the seeds o f that which is to come. symbol of presence, a life there.

That last sequence is usually in­ terpreted as a time trip, but it’s more related to what I was just talking about. All those quick flashes of trees and things were meant to channel down into that last leaf you see floating slowly to the ground. “ R e t u r n ” i s v e r y we l l photographed. There is a stark, eerie quality to the old house. The whole film flashes before you like a memory, and the crisp, dark images remain. That marvellous sequence at the end, for instance . . .

* Prints of these films, together with a large array of other experimental works, are available from the Vincent Library. The film co-ops also provide libraries of such films.

Andrew Pecze

I shot that sequence using printing stock to increase the con­ trast.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 47

iB llll

DAVID GREIG

Above. Frame enlargement from Greig’s new Film on the Swiss Circus Royale, Circus.

All the elements in the film seem to have a natural unity and are part of the progression to that final se­ quence . . . , N

Yes, that unity is what I hope for.

It’s probably because I have a real­ ly strong idea of what I want to do before I start. That film grew out of a dream I had, and this starting point gave me a definite feeling about' the sort of approach I wanted to take, although the shots were worked out on the spot. That’s, probably why it all comes together like that.

Do you have a definite idea of each film?

Yes. The idea might change dur­ ing the filming, but I always start with an exact idea of where the film is going. With Return and Witness, I maintained that idea throughout production.

Did “ Ceremony” meet your ex­ pectations?

With Ceremony I think I went past my expectations. It was such a long time in the making, that the things vital to me when I started, didn’t really interest me anymore at the finish.

How long did it take?

Just over a year and a half. The cut workprint was stolen and the original had to be workprinted again. The re-editing took me a couple of months. Also, the film was made in my spare time, which is an absolutely insane way to try and make a film.

Did the other films have a similar production period?

No. That’s probably the reason they didn’t change as much. Wit­ ness took a lot longer than you would think from looking at it, because half of it wasn’t even shot 48 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Right: Ceremony. The artist takes leave of his paintings,

at Apollo Bay — things like that.

“Witness” has the feeling of a moment in time. You are not aware of shots or technique, you are just aware of a moment happening . . .

I wanted it to be like that: like a little crystal, a little gem. To look at it, it’s really nothing — it’s a bit of shiny, translucent stuff. But it seems to reflect a lot of things, and this is what I was hoping the film would do.

It is so simple that it doesn’t in­ trude at all, and that’s probably why most people don’t seem to get much out of it. But that is why I am really pleased with it; why I like it more than the others.

You have used cyclical images throughout the film: the roundabout, the repetitive sounds of footsteps, seagull squawks, waves rolling in. I think it probably helps achieve that feeling for the moment I was talking about . . .

effects are unusual or original — to me the use of the colour is pretty straight forward. When it is used with black and white, it sets certain areas of the film on a different plane and relates them to each other outside the framework they are in. So to me, the effects were quite natural. I never had any doubt as to how I was going to use them.

The use of colour in the supers, and whenever we see the painting, seems to relate the physical and sen­ sual with the artist’s creative ex­ perience . . .

Yes, I was trying to bring the sensual and creative sides together.

Apart from that, it’s only the woman who stands for the catalyst that sparks off energies, whether they are creative or sexual, whatever. Hopefully, the effects are not too intrusive.

In all the films one catches glimpses of things that have happen­ ed and are now gone forever . . .

I like to see it as being like a little dance — a dance of life where cer­ Yes, you see a tiny little thing, tain steps are always repeated and which really can be totally in­ where the general movement is significant, but which reflects and always similar though everything stands for so many things. That is within it is unique. So that is why what I was trying to get across in it’s done ,in the manner of a cycle. Witness and Ceremony — glimpses The film ends as if it’s the end of of things trying to create a new sort the day —•with the night shot of the of world behind all the others. I street. I didn’t want it to look like wanted to show how unique and im­ an ending, however, so I put the portant they can be.

Really, that is why anybody weather report on the radio which you hear in the background. creates anything — to try and cap­ ture the far greater things that are Technically, “ Ceremony” out­ contained within something very shone the other films. There is a small. To try and make yourself, considerable prowess in the use of and whoever views what you have co lo u r and b lack and w h ite, done, see things in a different light. superim positions, m ultiple e x ­ If that comes out of the films, no posures, etc. Did you conceive these matter what other ideas I may have techniques as part of the original been trying to get through, that’s idea, or is it something which came the im portant thing. They are about in the editing? things that can be universal.

For example, the relating of the They were planned from the sexual to the creative is narrower, beginning. I can’t tell whether the it’s scope intended for a smaller

number of people—less universal, perhaps, than the desire to help people see the fantastic things going on around them. They are unique and yet all the same. It’s a paradox­ ical thing.

When you are making a film, do you think in terms of the audience it’s going to reach?

I didn’t for the first two, and I didn’t at first with Ceremony. But though I saw Ceremony as a simple film with few elements, I could see that there were a lot of little things going on all the time. I thought about drawing them together as far as other people were concerned.

But, I still see them as being in­ credibly simple films, and that’s the way I like to keep them/ All your films are a journey of sort, but “ Ceremony” is a journey in a more literal sense of the word. It starts with the artist going out of his room, and all the images that he sees and has seen are intercut in a literal time sense, whereas the other films aren’t really like that . . . .

Yes, you gradually realize that

MCGUINNESS, P.P.

CONTRIBUTORS INDEX FREIBERG, FREDA

ADLER, SUE Flesh for Frankenstein and Young Frankens­ tein 53-54 (r, cr) Animation — Disneyland to Dismaland 139­ 141 (a) Jack Thompson (ac) 120-122 (i, f)

AMOS, LINDSAY La Circostanza 130 (r) La Prima Angelica 131 (r) Tabiate Bijan 189 (r) Nada 150-151 (r)

BEILBY, PETER Bruce Smeaton 165-167 (i)

BISHOP, ROD Zanuck and Brown (p) 306-309, 382 (i)

BRANDES, DAVID Sydney Pollack — on actors, direction and screenwriters 321-324 (i,f)

BROUS, DAVID 1975 international Women’s Film Festival 213 (r)

BURSTALL, TIM What’s It Like on the Recieving End of Australian Film Criticism? 214-215 (a)

BUCKLEY, ANTHONY You Know Where We've Been, B u t . . , 31-34

(a) CLANCY, JACK 1975 M elbourne Film Festival Germ an Season 134-135 (r) Sunday Too Far Away 154 (r.cr) Nights Moves 261 (r, cr) How Willingly You Sing 268 (r, cr) Barry Lyndon 363 (r, cr)

COLE, MARCUS The Wind and the Lion

Restrictive Trade Practices Legislation and the Film Industry — Part 1 35-38, 82-83 (a) The Mean Machine 54-55 (r.cr) Restrictive Trade Practices Legislation and the Film industry Part 11 116-119 (a) The Exhibitors (Village, Hoyts, Greater Union) 123-226, 185-187 (i) Cannes 75 127-128 (r) Francis Ford Coppola (d,p) 202-206, 284 (i) Getting Smart About Art: David Roe 232 234 (i) Producing Picnic: Pat Lovell (p) 298-301, 377 (i) 7 Zanuck and Brown (p) 306-309, 382 (i) Guide for the Australian Film Producer 315­ 317, 377, 383 (a)

GORR, LEON Guide for the Australian Film Producer 315SI 7, 377, 383 (a)

GLENN, GORDON Anthony Buckley (p) 244-246 (I) Helen Morse (ac)/Don Crombie (d) 247-249

(D

Phil Adams (p) 340-343, 347 (i) Don McAipine (c) 344-345 (i)

GRIGGS, IAN Will-E-Twist - Rediscovered 355-357 (a)

HALL, KEN A Matter of Fact 46-47, 90.

HALL, SANDRA HARRIS, MIKE

COLLINS, BILL 50 Superstars; Spectacular; War Movies 173-175 (br)

11 Harrowhou.se 58-59 (r, cr) Tuzolto Utca 25 189 (r)

HODSDON, BARRETT

COOPER, ROSS Australian Feature Film Checklist 137-138, 190 (f) Filmography: Beaumont Smith 332-333 (f)

Film as a Subversive Art 81 (br) Core Collection 223-225 (a)

HODSDON, BRUCE Hollywood and After 80 (br)

COUNIHAN, MICK in the

CREED, BARBARA 1975 Melbourne Film Festival Shorts 134 (r)

DAWSON, JAN Shuji Terayama (d) 231 (a) 1975 Chicago Film Festival 318-319 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 359 (r. cr) Black Moon 361-362 (r, cr)

DERMODY, SUSAN Soviet Cinema — An Interview with Sergei Gerasimov 329-331, 373 (i, f)

DUIGAN, VIRGINIA The Front Page 62-63 (r, cr) Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More 149-150 (r, cr)

EDGAR, PATRICIA Raped, Slapped and Ignored 39-41 (a)

EDMONDSON, RAY The Last Newsreel 302-305, 378 (a)

FLAUS, JOHN 4th International Perth Film Festival 227-229

(r)

GINNANE, ANTONY I.

Allonsofan 130 (r) Les Ordres 132 (r)

369 (r, cr)

Images and Influence: Studies Sociology of film 173 (br)

1975 International Woman’s Film Festival 213 (r) The Great MacArthy 262-263 (r,cr)

HUTCHINSON, IVAN Bruce Smeaton 165-167 (i) Soundtracks 176; 282; 375;378.

INGRAM, NORMAN Paul Winkler — Experimental Filmmaker 220-222, 282 (I)

JOHNSTON, CHRISTINE 1975 International Women’s Film Festival.

210, 213 (r)

JOHNSTON, SUE Susan Sontag (d, sc) 112, 177 (if) 1975 International Women’s Film Festival 210 (r)

LANSELL, ROSS Scenes From a Marriage 63-64 (r,cr)

LONG, JOAN Australian Feature Film Checklist 137-138, 190 (f)

LONGMORE, PAT Glenda Jackson (a) 111, 177 (i,f) 1975 International Women’s Film Festival 210-213 (r)

MACLEAN, STEVE Jack Thompson (ac) 120-122 (i,f)

L’udienza 130 (r) Himiko 131 (r) A Noite do Espantaiho 132 (r)

MATHEWS, FREYA The Trial of Billy Jack 151, 154 (r,cr)

MOGG, KEN The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock 279 (br)

MORA, PHILIPPE Disaster Films 10-13 (a)

MORAN, JOHN Steven Spielberg (d) 106-108, 190 (i,f)

MORRIS, MEAGHAN Contes immoraux 55-58 (r,cr) Le Secret 132, 189 (r) Phantom of Liberty 157 (r,cr) Feminist Critique 207-209, 286 (a)

MURPHY, JIM The Removalists 147-148 (r,cr) The Man from Hong Kong 261-262 (r,cr) The Man Who Would Be King 366 (r,cr)

MURRAY, JOHN C. The Taking of Pelham 123 148 (r,cr) The Fortune 269 (r, cr) Love and Death (r, cr) 362

MURRAY, SCOTT The Exhibitors (Village) 126, 187 (i) Middle of the World 131 (r) La Gueule Ouverte 131-132 (r) 4th International Perth Film Festival 229-230 (r) Getting Smart About Art: David Roe 232-234 ( i)

Anthony Buckley (p) 244-246 (I Helen Morse (ac) Don Crombie (d) 147-249 (i) Picnic At Hanging Rock (r,cr) 264-265 Producing Picnic: Pat Lovell 298-301,377 (i) Zanuck and Brown (p) 306-309, 382 (I) Phil Adams (p) 340-343, 347 (i) Don McAipine (c) 344-345 (i)

O’HARA, JOHN Andrei Rublev 63 (r.cr) 1975 Melbourne Film Festival Hungarian Season 135, 178 (r) Political Cinema: intention and Effect 142­ 145, 191 (a) Shadowman 155 (r,cr) WR and Sweet Movie: Dusan Makavejev (d) 235-241 (i,f) ' Section Speciale 263 (r,cr)

PEARCE, DAVID Hoszakadas 189 (r)

PIKE, ANDREW Filmography: Charles Chauvel (d) 44-45 (f) Australian Feature Film Checklist 137-138, 190 (f) Akio Jissojl (d) 310-314

PURDON, NOEL Under Western Eyes — Notes Towards the Australian Cinema 216-219 (a) 1001 Nights and 120 Days — the Erotic Cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini 113-115,180 (a) Pier Paolo Pasolini 1922-1975 334-335 (a)

RADO, ERWIN Albert Wright 257-259 (i) 1975 Sans Sebastion Film Festival 277 (r)

RANDALL, MARK Chinatown 51-52 (r, cr) Pistolen 132 (r) The Godfather Part 11 148-149 (r,cr)

READE, ERIC Brian Probyn (c) 73-75 (I, f)

RYAN, TOM Fear Eats the Soul 271 (r,cr) Mandingo 359-360 (r,cr) The Passenger 367 (r,cr)

SHIRLEY, GRAHAM Byron Haskin (d) 18-23, 86 (i,f)

INDEX KEY 1. Film titles appear in bold type. Magazine, play and book titles appear in italics.

2. The following appear after in­ dex items (where applicable) d - director p - producer c - cameraman e - editor t - technician ac - actor sc - scriptwriter 3. The following appear after page n u m b e r s (where applicable) a - articles i - interviews f - filmography st - stills cr - production credits r - reviews br - book reviews

Ross Wood (c,p) 76-79 (i,f) The Filmgoers Companion 80-81 (br) Sunday Too Far Away 189 (r) 1975 Sydney Film Festival — Salute to Australian Films 136 The Voyage 269 (r.cr)

SPUNNER, SUE The International Women’s Film Festival 109-110 (a) Glenda Jackson (a) 111, 177 (l,f) 1975 International Women's Film Festival 210, 211-212 (r)

STOCKS, IAN 1975 Sydney Film Festival Documentaries 133 (r) Nashville 268 (r,cr)

STRATTON, DAVID Jennings Lang: Disasters Mr. Success 14-17 (i) Emmanuel 59, 62 (r,cr) Francis Ford Coppola (d,p) 202-206, 234 (i) 1975 Berlin and Moscow Film Festivals 275­ 276 (r)

THOMAS, ALBIE Surf Movies — The Quiet industry 26-30 (a)

THORNHILL, ROGER O. Final Cut: The Making and Breaking of a Film 175 (br) Your Introduction to Film and Television Copyright Contracts and other Law 279 (br) Motion Picture Distribution: Business or Rackets 279 (br)

TITTENSOR, JOHN The True Story of Eskimo Nell 52-53 (r,cr)

VALLACOTT, E.R. Core Collections 223, 225 (a)

WILLIS, HOWARD Renovations in Earthquake Hotel — A Look at the New Zealand Film Industry 325-328, 380 (a)

ZALKANS, JEKEBS Die Verrohung Des Franz Blum 130 (r)

Cinema Papers Index 1975 — 1

GENERAL INDEX A Aardvark Films 380 Abachurina Post Office 228 (r) Abroad 275 (r) Accattone 113,115,180 Ace in the Hole 190 Act of the Heart 16 Acting 111, 117; 120-122; 247-249; 321-322 Action in the North Atlantic 19, 20 Adam 160 (cr) Adams, Phil (p) 340-343, 347 (I) Adjani, Isabelle 297 Adoption, The 275 (r, st) Adorable Outcast, The 34 (st) Adventures of Algy, The 138 (st); 333 (cr) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, The 15; 105 ' Age of Consent 244 Aguirre, Wrath of God 297 Airforce 19, 20 Airport 75 9; 11 (st); 15 Alcestis 160 (cr) Aldrich, Robert 54, 55 Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore 127; 149-150 (r cr); 208 Alice in the Cities 134 Allen, Woody 362 Allen, Suzanne 212 Allonsanfan 128; 130 (r, st) Almond, Paul 16, 17 Alternative Cinema (N.Z.) 380 Altman, Robert 105; 268 Alvin Purple 8; 20; 126; 215 Alvin Rides Again 8; 69 (cr); 126; 200 America, Everything You Ever Dreamed Of 133 American Film Theatre 9; 126 American Graffiti 15; 200; 205; 289, American Zoetrope 204, 205 ’Amy, George 20 Andersson, Harriet 276 Andrei Rublev 63 (r, cr); 329 Angel Gear 67 (cr) Animals 30 Animation — Disneyland to Dlsmaland 139-141 (a) Anti-Trust Laws 38, 82 Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman 213 (r,st) Antonio Gaudi — To A Dancing God 70 (cr) Antonioni, Michelangelo 367, 369 Apocalypse Now 105; 206, 284; 296 Applause Please 70 (cr) Arnold, Eve 212 Arrleta, Adolfo 228 Art Cinemas: see Playbox Theatre Art Theatre Guild 311 Arthur, Karen Artists at the Top of the Big Top: Disoriented 227 Arzner, Dorothy 8; 109; 213 Asakl Yumenlshi 312 (st), 314 Association for a National Film and Television Archive 170; 280; 372 At Land 211, 212 (r) Attack! 55 Attendance Polls 105 Audience, The (L’udienza) 130 (r, st) Audio Visual Education Centre Film Unit 351 Audrey, Jacqueline 210 Australia After Dark 8; 104; 126, 128; 201 Australian Cinema — see Under Western Eyes Australian Cinematographers' Society, The 89; 170; 283 Australian Council for Children's Films and Television, The 170 Australian Feature Film Checklist 1906-1975 137­ 138, 190 Australian Film Awards 1974-75 24-25 Australian Film Commission 34, 104; 185, 187; 226, 273 (policy statement); 296 Australian Film Council, The 170 AFC Grants 255 (July-Aug, 1975); 353 (Sept.-Oct., 1975) Australian Film Criticism 214-215 Australian Film Development Corporation 8; 27; 32; 104; 244; 299-301 AFDC Grants 163 (Jan-June 1975) Australian Film Institute 233 Australian Film and Television School 134 Australian Newsreels 303-305, 378 Australian Gazette, The 303 Australian Movietone News 303, 378 Australian Movie Magazine 303, 378 Australian Surf Movie Checklist 1960-74 30 Australian Theatres 123-125, 185-186 Australian Writers’ Guild, The 88; 169; 280; 372 Avakian, Aram 58-59 Avanti 15

Back of Beyond 76 Back Street General 67 (cr) Bacon, Lloyd 20 Baker, David 8; 105; 262 Baker, Snowy 44 Banks, Terry 90 Barbera, Joe 141 Barefoot Adventure 29 Barney 159 (cr) Barter, Bill 355, 357 Barrett, Ray 340 Barry Butts In 333 (cr) Barry Lyndon 363 (r, cr) Barwood, Hal 205 Bawdy Tales 335 (st) Bazza Holds His Own 69 (cr) Beatty, Warren 269 Behind the Veil 212 (r) Belmondo, Jean-Paul 105 Benchley, Peter 108 Ben Hur 9 Senji 9 Beresford, Bruce 341, 342, 345 Bergen, Candice 58; 369 Bergman, Ingmar 64; 111; 297 Berlin Film Festival 1975 275-276 (r) Bertolucci, Bernando 142, 145; 296 Betrayer, The 333 (cr) Between Wars 8; 25; 69 (cr); 104; 123, 125, 128; 186; 215; 217-219 (st); 286 Big Fellow, The 251 (cr)

2 — Cinema Papers Index 1975

Big Surf, The 27 Big Knife, The 55 Bigger Splash, A 133 Billy and Percy 25 Billy Jack 154 Bingo Long 108 Bio-Gas 350 (cr) Birds, The 13 Birth of a Nation 201 Bitter Springs 76 (cr) Black, Karen 105 Black Moon 361-362 (r, cr) Black, Red, White 350 (cr) Black Stallion, The 206 Blackton, J. Stuart 140 Blanche 56, 57 Blazing Saddles 54 Bloom Jeffrey 59 Blue Ferns, The 201 Blue Water and Big Fish 76 Blundell, Graeme 341 Boardriders 30 Bo Dream 67 (cr) Bogart, Humphrey 51 Bogart Slept Here 201 Bogdanovitch, Peter 105; 297 Bonnie and Clyde 13; 51 Book reviews 80, 81; 173, 174; 279 Borowczyk, Walerian (d) 55-58 Boston Strangler, The 360 Bourke, Terry 73, 74 Box, The 67 (cr) Box, Muriel 109 Boyd, Russell 262; 265 Brault, Michel 132 Bray, T.R. 140 Break of Day 349 (cr) Brick Wall 222 (st), 282 Bride Wore Red, The 109 (st); 213 (cr) Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia 207 (st) Bristow and the Black Marlin 350 (cr) BEF Film Distributors 9; 125; 186; 300, 301 Brooks, Mel 54 Broken Melody 46 Brother Can You Spare A Dime? 127, 128; 133; 200 Brother Karl 112; 177 (cr) Brown, David (p) 16; 306-309; 382 (i) Browne, Bud 27 Brownlow, Kevin 229 Bruno the Black 230 Brutalization of Franz Blum, The 130 (r, st) Buccaneers, The 105; 201 Buchanan, Larry 104 Buckley, Anthony (p) 244-246 (i) Buck’s Party, The 350 (cr) Buffalo Bill and the Indians 105 Bujold, Genevieve 16 Bulls 25; 134 Bunuel, Luis 157 Burke, Graham 126; 187 Burril, Christine 212 Burstall, Tim (d) 8; 30; 104; 122, 126; 296 Burstyn, Ellen 149 Burton, Geoff 25 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 39, 40 Butley 9 Butler, Larry 23

c

Cabaret 39 Caddie 243-249 (production report, cr); 296-297; 251 Caine, Michael 366 Caligula 297 Call Me By My Proper Name 104 Campanero 133 Candidate, The 39 Cannes Film Festival 1975 104; 127-128 Canterbury Tales 113 (st), 114, 115 Capitol Theatres 37 Captain Blood 19, 22 Captain Sinbad 22 Captain Thunderbolt 76, 79 (st); 138 (st) Cars That Ate Paris 166; 200 Casanova 201; 296 Cassavetes, John 297 Catastrophe films 10-13 Cavani, Liliani 110 Censorship 201; 296-297 Ceremony 70 (cr) Chabrol, Claude 150, 151; 201 Chac 228 (r, st) Channlng, Stockard 269, 270 Chants 222 (st) Chapman Report, The 307 Charlie Bubbles 17 Chauvel, Charles (p, d, sc) 44-45 (f); 136 Cheaters, The 136; 211 (r, st); Chicago Film Festival 1975 318-319 (r) Child of Revolution 229 (r) Children of the Moon 70 (cr) Chilla and Bert 67 (cr) Chinatown 51-52 (r, cr); 297 Chloe in the Afternoon 207, 208, 209 (st) Chrlstofer Strong 109 Cinema Center Group 37 Cinema International Corporation 35-36 Cinema 5 206 Cinematographers 73-75; 76-79; 344-345 Cinesound 302-305, 378 (a) Cinesound Review 304, 305, 378 Circumstance, The (Le Circostanza) 130 (r) Clarke, Shirley 8; 212 Cleopatra 308 Clockwork Orange, The 13 Colletin, Jean 59 Collins, Judy 213 Colonel Hezza Liar 140 Columns 88-89; 170-171; 280-281; 372-373 Columbia Pictures 182; 200 Commonwelath Film Unit 169 Compulsion 306, 307 (st); 360 Confession, The 142 Conformist, The 52; 142 Confrontation, The 135 (r) Connery, Sean 366; 369 Conquest of Space 20 (st) Conscript, The 131 (r, st) Cousin Angelica 131 (r, st) Contes Immoraux 55-58 (r, cr) Continuous theatres 258 Contracts, Standard form of 82 Contrasts 350 (cr) Contrived Mind Flashes 252 (cr) Conversation, The 204, 206 (st)

Cool World, The 212 (r) Coppola Cinema 7 206 Coppola Company, The 206 Coppola, Francis Ford (d, p) 105; 148, 149; 202-206, 284 (I, f); 296-297 Copyright 315-317; 377, 383 (a); 316 (International Copyright Relations) Core Collective Proposal 223-225 Core, Steve 30 Corman, Roger 200, 203 Corrida 297 Costa-Gavras 142-146; 263 Cotterlll, Dorothy 90 Countess from Hong Kong 17 Coup de Grace, Le 297 Crack in the Mirror 360 Cracknell, Leo 90 Craig’s Wife 109 Crawford, Joan 107 Crazy Movies 350 (cr) Creatures, Les 110 Crombie, Don (d) 134; 247-249 (i) Cross, Bert 46; 304 Cross, Clive 46 Crying Sisters, The 19 Crystal Voyager 29 (st), 30 (cr) Cubic 67 (cr) Cummins. Peter 147, 148 Cyrano de Bergerac 105

Daffy 160 (cr) Dairy of a Mad Housewife 41 Dallesandro, Joe 53,54 Damned, The 143 Dance Girl, Dance 109 Dark 221,282 Daryl F. Zanuck Company, The 307, 309 Dauman, Anatole 296 Davey, Jack 305 Dawn, Norman 86;136 Dawson. Julie 25 Day of the Locust, The 127 (st); 297 de Mille, Cecil B. 11 De Sica, Vittorio 142: 269 Death Race 2000 128; 200 Death Wish 105 Decameron, The 113(st), 114(st), 115; 335 (st) Deceit 105 Deep, The 201 Deep Throat 10-13 (a) Delicious Dreams Despite Depression 252 (cr) Delicate Balance, A 9 Deling, Bert 201 Deliverance 39 Demetrakes, Johanna 211 Demonstrator 200 Dendy Cinema 126 Deren, Maya 211 Dersu Uzala 276 (r,st) Descharel, Caleb 134 Desert Gold 333 (cr) Destroy She Said 112 Devil Today, The 201 Devil’s Party, The 251 (cr) Devil’s Playground, The 349 (cr) Diamond, Billy 15 Diamond, I.A.L. 62 Diamond, Izzy 15 Digger Earl, The 333 (cr) Dilemma, The 319 Directing/DIrectors 18-23,86; 107-108, 190; 112-117; 203-206, 284; 220-222, 282; 235-240; 247-249; 311-314; 322-324; 329-331, 373 Director's Company, The 206 Dirty Dozen, The 54 Dirty Harry 39; 111; 201 Disaster Films 10-13 (a) Disney, Walt 139, 140 Distributor-exhibitor links 35 Distribution of Films 35-38, 82-83 Dr. K 160 (cr) Doights dans la Tete, Les 319 (r.st) Doillon, Jacques 319 Doll Squad, The 41 Don Juan 19 Don's Party 104; 339-347 (production report) Donaldson, Roger 380 Don’t Talk to me About the Blues, Baby 70 (cr) Double Dealer 160 (cr) Downhill Racer 73 Doyle, Stuart 32:125 Dragic, Nedelijka 134 Dragon Flies 200 Dreamland 133; 136 Dreams and Nightmares 133 Dream of Loh, The 252 (cr) Driver, Roy 305 Drouyn 29, 30 Duel 9; 107 (st) Duet for Cannibals 112, 177 (cr); 210 (r,st) Duek Amuk 140 Dunaway, Faye 51,52; 321, 322 Duras, Marguerite 8; 112 Duval, Robert 148 Duvan, Allan 19 Duvidha 319

E Earthquake 11, 13; 15, 16; 296 Eastman Kodak Company 183 Eastwood, Clint 16 Easy Rider 39,40 Edouart, Farclot 20 Edwards, Blake 297 Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds 9 Eiger Sanction, The 16 Einstein, Albert 20 Eisholz, Lutz 230 Elek, Judy 210 Elektreia 178 (r,st) 11 Harrowhouse 58-59 (r,cr) Elfick, David 29 Elusive Geisha, The 70(cr) EMI Ltd 182 Emmanuelle 59,62 (r,cr); 296

Emperor of the North 54 End Play 126;159 (cr) Endless Summer 29,30(cr) Enfance Nue, La 131 English Monopolies Commission, Report of 82-83 Enigma of Kasper Hauser, The 127(st) Entertainer, The 104 Equus 297 Erotic Cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini 113-115, 180(a) Eureka Stockade 136 Eustache, Jean 201;230 Evans, Bob 27,29,30 Everyman 252 (cr) Evolution 30(cr) Everyman for Himself and God Against All 229-230 (r,st) Exhibition 201 Exhibition of films 35-38, 82-83 Exhibitors, The 123-126, 185-187 (a) Exorcist, The 200; 297 Experimental 134 Experimental filmmakers — see Paul Winkler Express Gazette 303

F F for Fake 128 Face to Face 105 Fakenheim Occupation 211 Falzon, Albert 29, 30 Family Free 30 (cr) Fantasia 139, 140 Fantasm (Fantale) 350 (cr) Fantastic Planet 139 Fantome de la Liberte, Le 157 (r, cr) Far Out Adventures of Captain Cool, The 160 (cr) Far Paradise, The 34 (st) Fassbinder, Rainer Werner 271 Favio, Leonardo 276 Fear Eats the Soul 271 (r, cr) Fee aux Choux, La 109 Feldman, Marty 54 Feldman, Phil 204 Felix 252 (cr) Fellini, Federico 201; 296; 297 Female Bunch, The 41 Feminist Critique 207-209, 286 (a) Ferrari, Marco 130 Film Contracts 82 Film Criticism Australian 214-215 Film Editors’ Guild of Australia 88; 170; 372 Film Festivals — 1975 International Women’s 109-110 (a); — 1975 Cannes 127-128 — 1975 Melbourne and Sydney 129-136, 178, 189 — 1975 International Perth 227 —231 — 1975 Berlin 275-6 — 1975 Moscow 275-6 — 1975 San Sebastian 277 — 1975 Chicago 319 Film Production Association of Australia, The 88; 171 Film, Radio and Television Board 8; 104; 226; 232 Film, Radio and Television Board Grants (March 1975) 71 Films released 1975 375-377 Films released In Australia 1974 42 Films and Restrictive Trade Practice 35-38, 82 Film Study Resources 223 Filmography — Charles Chauvel 44-45 — Noel Monkman 169 — Beaumont Smith 332-333 Film scoring 165-167; 176 Filmways 36; 124, 126 Filmmakers Group, The 16 Finian's Rainbow 203, 204 Fink, Margaret 123 Finney, Alan 126 Finnish Frustrations 212 (r, st) Finks Make Movies 133 Firm Man, The 70 (cr) Fitzpatrick, Kate 143 Fitzwater, Bill 29 Five Easy Pieces 39 Fleischer, Richard 359, 360 Flesh for Frankenstein 53-54 (r. cr) Fletcher, Louise 359 Floating 70 (cr) Flowers and Trees 140 Fly by Night 44 (cr) Fonda, Jane 212 For the Term of His Natural Life 138 (st) For What 350 (cr) Forgotten Cinema 244 Forman, Milos 297; 359 Fortune, The 269, 271 (r, cr) 40,0 0 0 Horsemen 32; 44 (cr), 45 (st); 136 Four Musketeers, The 203 Fourth Wish, The 349 (cr) Fox Movietone News-Australian Edition 303 Franju, Georges 155 Franklin, Richard 52, 53; 200 Franklin, Sidney 19 Friends of Eddie Coyle, The 39 French Connection, The 39 From the Earth to the Moon 23 (st) From These Roots 134 Front Page, The 15, 16; 62-63 (r, cr) Funny Girl 39

G Galileo 127, 128 Gambler, The 17 Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The 142 Genius, The 201 Gentleman Bushranger, The 133 Gerasimov, Sergei (d) 329-331, 373 (i,f) Germia, Haile 229 Gertie the Trained Dinosaur 139 (st), 140 Getting Back to Nothing 30 (cr) Getting Smart About Art: Playbox Cinema 232-234 (I) Getting of Wisdom, The 343 Gidget Goes Hawaiian 26 (st) Gielgud, John 58, 59 Gift of Laughter 133 Ginger Meggs 141 Ginsburg the Great 19 Gillies, Max 52, 53

KODAK (Australasia) PTY. LTD M otion Picture & Audiovisual M arkets Division

Russell Boyd, Director or Photography onTicnic at Hanging Rock talks about Kodak films . . . “A fter th ree years with C inesound N ew sreel in M elbourne, I’d shot quite a few cinem a new sreels and several T.V. commercials, all in black and white. Using color film was alm ost u n h eard of in those days.

W e used color for 16mm industrial docum entaries and the occasional cinem a commercial.

W e w ere all a little terrified of the m edium ” . . . “I joined H .S.V .7 News D ep artm en t in 1964 and w ent out onto the streets to photograph life around me. At the time, we, as cinem atographers, all experim ented with various film emulsions and different brands and in the end cam e back to E astm an Plus X film for black and white and E ktachrom e film for color. T hese two emulsions becam e the standard to work from and progress w ith” . . .

“L ater, while w orking at S uprem e Films, I started a love affair with E astm an Color N egative.” . . . “Picnic at H anging R ock was a coming of age for all of us. From the start I felt we had to capture the ‘Tom R o b erts’ light of the A ustralian countryside, and I think we did. E astm an 5247 Color N egative was just coming of age and provided us with a pallette to paint w ith” . . .

“Technology is closing the gap betw een creative expression and the m eans of recording it. K odak is helping to close the gap.”

Kodak color filmsthe keyto creative expression.

KODAK (Australasia) PT Y . LTD .

M otion P icture & A udiovisual M ark ets Division PIC N IC AT HAN GING ROCK was shot on Eastm an Color Negative Film 5247

K 6 7 /9 3 3 4

KODAK (Australasia) PT Y . LTD M otion Picture & Audiovisual M arkets Division

INDEX VOLUME 2, 1975

Girl, The 210 <r) Girls, The 213 (r.st) Girl from Peking, The 120 Girl from Petrovka, The 309 Girl of the Bush A 137 (st) Gish, Lillian 109 Give the Dog a Good name 251 (cr) Give us This Day Our Day in the Sun 160 (cr) Godfather, The 39; 105; 203; 205 (st); 297 Godmilow, Jill 213 Going Places 201; 208 (st) Goldberg, Milton Moses 229 Golden Harvest (Films) 125 Good and Evil 227 (r,st) Goodbye Norma Jean 104 Gorton, John 342 Gortner, Marjoe 228 Gospel, The 113, 180 Glazer, Ramon 142 Grande Bouffe, La 115 Grande Illusion, La 54 Grande Bouffe, La 115 Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner, The 230 (r) Great Gatsby, The 8; 74; 203, 204 Great MacArthy, The 25; 68 (cr); 105; 166; 262-263 (r-cr) Great Waldo Pepper, The 15, 16 (st) Greater Union Organisation 35-37; 125; 126; 185,186 Greater Union Theatres Pty Ltd 125, 126; 185; 186 Greaves, William 134 Green, Cliff 125; 265; 299, 301 Green, Marika 59 Greenhide 44 (cr) Greenough, George 29 Grimes Gang, The 360 Grissom Gang, The 54 Grodin, Charles 58, 59 Guard, Dominic 301 Gueule Ouverte, La 131-131 (r) Guide for the Australian Film Producer: Part I 315-317 377, 383 (a) Guillerman, John 105 Guy-Blance, Alice 109 Guys and Dolls 9

Immoral Tales 55-58(r,cr) In Danger and Distress, Compromise Means Death 135(r); 227 In the Heat of the Night 39 In Natural Flow 30(cr) In the Wake of the Bounty 44(cr) Independent distributors 35-37 Infantile Malady of Left Communism 240 Inn of the Damned 60(st,cr); 69(cr); 73;75; 104;128 Innocent Bystanders 73

Hair 297 Hall, Ken G. 136:304,378 Hance, Paul 303 Hanna, Bill 141 Hannam, Ken 25;121;128;154;218-219;341 Happy Birthday Wanda June 16 Hard Day’s Night, A 204 Hard Knocks 160(cr) Hargreaves, John 148,341 Harlow 104 Harness Fever 349(cr) Harris, Lawson 133 Harris, Martin 147,148 Haskell, Molly 207,209;284 Haskin, Byron(d) 18-23, 86 (i,f) Hauff, Reinhard 130 Hawaiian Memories 27 Hawaiian Thrills 30(cr) Hay, David 229 Haydon, Tom 212 Hayseeds, The 333(cr) Hayseeds Backblocks Show, The 333 (cr) Hayseeds Come to Town, The 333(cr) Hayseeds Melbourne Cup, The 333(cr) Haywood, Chris 148 Hazan, Jack 133 Hearts and Minds 133 Heart and Soul 252(cr) Heath, George 90 Hecht, Ben 15 Helga’s Webb (Scobie Malone) 67(cr) Hello Dolly 39 Herald Cinesound News Review 304 Herald Newsreel, The 304 Heretic, The 297 Heritage, The 44(cr) Heroines 41 Herrmann, Bernard 375.378(a) Herschells Pty Ltd 259;304 Herzog, Werner 229,231:297 Hexagon Productions 32;126 High on a Cool Wave 30(cr) Highway One 350(cr) Hike, Willard & Gloria 205 Hill, George Roy 16 Himalayan Journey, A 252(cr) Himiko 131 (r, st) Hindenburg, The 9,11 ;15,16 His Majesty O’Keefe 20,23(st),86 His Royal Highness 138(st) Histoire D’Adele H., La 277(r,st); 297 History of Australia 160(cr) History of the Blue Movie 201 Hockney, David 133 Holmes, Cecil 104 Holubar, Allen 19 Homecoming, The 9 Hooper, Tobe 127 Hopgood, Allan 52 Hopkins, Harold 341 Hoszakadas 189(r) Hotchkis, Joan 319 Hot Generation, The 29,30(cr) Howard, Trevor 58 How Willingly You Sing 70(cr); 268(r) Hoyts Theatres Ltd 35-37;124,185:257-259 Hu, King 230 Hullo Marmaduke 333(cr) Humorous Phases of Funny Faces 140 Humphries, Barry 25 .

Humphries, Kim 141 Hustler, The 22 Huston, John 51;366

K

I |.F. Stone’s Weekly 233, 234 I Never Promised You a Long Run I Walk Alone 19,20 Iceman Cometh, The 9 Illuminations 161(cr)

134

International Women’s Film Festival 1975 109-110; 210-213 Intrigues de Sylvia Couski, Les 228(r) Introduction to the Enemy 212(r) Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion 142 Irish Hearts 19 Is Paris Burning? 203,204 Islands 29,30(cr) Isolated 221 It Was Only My Imagination 350(cr)

J Jackaroo of Coolabong, The 44(cr) Jackman, Fred 20 Jackson, Glenda (ac), 111, 177 (i, f) Jacob the Liar 275(r) Jaeckln, Just 59,62 Jalr, Bruce 134 Jakubowska, Wanda 110 Jancso, Miklos 135, 178 Jane 212(r) Jarrat, John 263 Jaws 15;107,108; 200,201; 297; 306,309; 382 Jazz Singer, The 19 Jedda 44(cr), 45(st); 217 Jersey, Bill 134 Jessel, George 19 Jissoji, Akio (d) 310-314 (a) Jog’s Trot 70(cr) Johnson, Karen 212 .

Journey of the Actors 275 Jolson, Al 19 Juggernaut 11 Just Around the Corner 109

Kaaresalo-Kasarl, Ella 212 Kahn, Madeleine 54 Kaplan, Neillle 8; 110; 210 Kastner. Elliot 297 Katzenjamer Kids 140 Kauffman,Joseph 21-22 Kaul, Manl 319 Kayser, Carl 21 Kazzam International 253 (cr) Keaton, Buster 19,20 Keaton, Dianne 362 Keays Byrne, Hugh 262 Kelly 70 (cr) Kelly Gang 32(st) Kennedy, Graham 341 Kenyon, J. Allen 90 Kernochan, Sara 228 Kier, Udo 53Killer Elite 201 Killer Elite 201 Killing of Sister George, The 54 King of the Coral Sea 76; 169 (cr) King of the Gypsies 105 King of the Islands 350 (cr) King Kong 296 Kingsbury, Bob 134 Kirlian photography 220-221 Kiss Me Deadly 55 Klein, Roland 228 Klinger, Michael 105 Kinski, Klaus 297 Kluge. Alexander 134, 135; 227 Klute 41; 208 Knots 128 Korty, John 205 Kosa, Ferenc 189 Kotcheff.Ted 121, 122 Kovacs, Andras 277 Kramer, Robert 128 Krazy Kat 140 Kristel, Sylvia 59, 62 Kubrick, Stanley 362 Kurosawa, Akira 276

L Lady from Constantinople, The 210 Lakshminarayan, N 228 Laloux, Rene 139 Lamond, John 8;104;201 Lang, Jennings (p) 14-17(i) Language of Love 201 Larger Than Life 70(cr) Last Detail, The 39(st) Last Drink, The 350(cr) Last Drive-In Movie 253(cr) Last Grave at Dimbaza 134 Last Newsreel, The 302-305, 378(a) Last of the Mohicans, The 105 Last Stage, The 110 Last Tango in Paris 145,297 Last Tycoon, The 201 Laughlin, Tom 151,154 Laurentlis, Dino de 105;296 Lawrence, Charles 304 Lawrenson, Harry 303 Lazareff, George 52 Leaf, Paul 134 Lee, Jack 340 Legacy 319(r,st) Legend of King Kong, The 296 Legend of Lylah Clare, The 54 Lehman, Ernest 105 Lemmon, Jack 62 Lenny 127 Leone, Sergio 201,297 Lester, Richard 201;297

Let the Balloon Go 251 (cr) Leth, Jorgen 227 Letters 85;371 Libido 120 Life in the Sun, A 29,30(cr) Lily Love Me 275 Lina Braake and the Interests of the Bank Lind, Graham 78,79 Lindsay, Joan 299 Lion’s Love 109(st); 211 (r.st) Listen to the Lion 67(cr) Little Creatures 350(cr) Live and Let Die 8 Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The 297 Loach, Ken 177 Load of Wood, A 76 Loin de Vietnam 110 Longest Day, The 307 Longest Yard, The 54-55(r,cr); 297 Longford, Raymond 32;136 Long Goodbye, The 51 Long John Silver 19,20(st); 77(st) Long Way Round 30(cr) Look Back in Anger 111 Loose Ends 318(st) Losers’ Club, The 134 Losey, Joseph 297 Lost Horizon 8 Lost in the Stars 9 Lost Virtue of Katharina Blum, The 277(r) Loteling, De 131 (r.st) Love 297 Love in the Afternoon 57 Love Dance Under the Elms 275 Love and Death 275(st); 362(r,cr) Love Epidemic, The 126 Love is a Four Letter Word 17 Love is Hate 25 Love Light, The 109 Love Story 9;297 Love Under the Crucifix 213(r) Lovell, Pat(p) 298-301, 377(i) Loving Couples 209(st); 211 (r) Lucas, George 204,205;284 Luplno, Ida 8;109 Luther 9 Lye, Reg 25

135(r)

McAlpine, Don (c) 344-345 (I) McArthur, Charley 15 McAvoy, May 19 McCabe and Mrs. Miller (4) McCay, Wlnsor Zenls 140 McDonagh, Phyllis, Isobelle & Paulette 136, 211 McElroy, Hal & Jim 299, 300, 301 McGregor, Malcolm 19 McMahon, Charles 136 McQ 39 Macrea, Ian 25 Mad Dog 251 (cr); 296 Made in New York 288 (r) Madchen in Uniform 210 (r) Magic Flute, The 127, 128 Magnum Force 39 Maids, the 127, 128 Makavejev, Dusan (d) 25; 133, 134; 142; 235-240 (i,f) Malcolm, George 46 Maldorer, Sarah 212 Malle, Louis 361 Malpaso Company, The 16 Maltese Falcon, The 51 Mama Roma 180 Marne 8 Mandara (Mandala) 313 Mandingo 359-360 (r, cr) Mandrake 105 Man-eater of Kumaon 20 Man-eaters, The 253 (cr) Man For All Seasons, A 39 Man From Hong Kong 32; 125; 128, 133, 261-262 (r, cr) Man From Snowy River, The 133 Man From the Desert 44 Man Who Came to Play, The 297 Man Who Fell to Earth, The 297 Man Who Would Be King, The 366 (r, cr) Mankiewlcz, Joe 15 Marat — Sade 111 Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon 141 Marion 248 Marion, Francis 109 Marjoe 228 (r) Marooned 23 M*A*S*H 39 Mason, James 58, 59 Mastroianni, Marcello 130 Matchless 25, 134 Matinee Ladies 19 Matthau, Walter 17; 62 May Fly 70 (cr) Me Dad Used to Ride Road Bikes 253 (cr) Mean Machine, The 39 (st); 54-55 (r, cr) Melanie and Me 350 (cr) Melbourne Film Festival 1975 129-36, 178, 189 (r) Melbourne Filmakers’ Co-operative Ltd. 88; 280; 372 Mellen, Joan 143; 207 Memories of France 128 Menzel, Jin 275 Merchant, Vivian 301 Meshes of the Afternoon 211 (r, st) Meszaros, Marta 210; 275 Middle of the Road is a Very Dead End, The 277 Middle of the World, The 131 (r) Midget Goes Hawaiin 30 (cr) Midnight Cowboy 39 Might Makes Right 128 Milestones 28 Milieu du Monde, Le 131 (r) Millus, John 205; 284; 369 Mimi the Metalworker 110 Mimosa 134 Minnelli, Liza 39, 41 Mollo, Andrew 229 Monash, Paul 15 Monkman, Kitty 169 Monkman, Noel (d, sc) 44; 136; 169 (f) Monopolies Commission 117 Monton, Vincent 25; 53 Monty Python and the Holy Grail 297 Moods 222 Moore, Tom 19 Mora, Philippe 133; 200, 296

More About the Language of Love 201 Morning of the Earth 28 (st), 30 (cr) Morris, David Burton 319 Morris, Judy 263 Morrissey, Paul 53, 54 Morse, Helen (ac) 247-249 (i) Moscow Film Festival 1975 275-276 (r) Mosfllm 203; 329 Mostyn, John 124; 185 Moth of Moonbi, The 44 (cr) Mother, Jugs and Speed 297 Mouth Wide Open, The 131-132 (r) Movie Company, The 125 Mrs Bilson 253 (cr) Mrs Fraser 296 Mr Chedworh Steps Out 136 Mr Symbol Man 234 Mujo 311, 313 (st) Murder on the Bridge 277 (r) Murder on the Orient Express 17 Muscle Beach Party 27 (st) Music flow-sheets 166-167 Music Lovers, The 111 My Little Loves 276 My Night-With Maud 57 My Way Home 135 (r)

Nada 150-151 (cr) Naked Jungle, The 19 Narrow Margin, The 360 Nashville 268 (r, cr) National Film Collection 223;280 National Library of Australia 171;223;372 Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf 276 Neilan, Marshall 19 Nell Down Under 200 Neurosis 222 New Centurions, The 360 New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation 327-328 New Zealand film Industry 325 328, 380 (a) New Zealand National Film Unit 325-327 Newman, Paul 16 Nicholson, Jack 51, 52; 269; 297 Night Games 110 (st) Night Moves 261 (r, cr) Night Porter 110 Night to Remember, A 11 Nigh of the Scarecrow, The 132 (r) 99 and 44/100 Per Cent Dead 58 No Place Else in the World to Be 253 (cr) Noite do Espantalho, A 132 (r) Noonan, Chris 25; 134 Northern Safari 200 Noyce, Phil 133 Nykvlst, Sven 133

o Occassional Work of a Woman Slave 135 (r, st); 227 Of Love and Anarchy 110 Oliver 39 Olml, Ermanno 130 Olympiade 110 (st) On Any Morning 30 (cr); 161 (cr) On the Ball 350 (cr) On the Beach 77 (st) On a Clear Day You Can See Forever 39 On Our Selection 31 (st); 46; 136; 137 (st) On the Track of Unknown Animals 161 (cr) Once 161 (cr) Once Upon a Time There Was America 297 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 201; 359 (r, cr) 100 Days After Childhood 275 120 Days of Sodom 113;180;201 ;296 One Just Man 105 1001 Nights 113-115 (st); 180 1001 Nights and 120 Days — the Erotic Cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini 113-115, 180 Orange 212 Orders (Les Ordres) 132 (r, st) O’Reilly, Phyllis 46 Orphan of the Wilderness 47 (st) Qsheroff, Abe 133 Oshlma, Nagisa 297 Other Francisco, The 275 Other Side of the Ledger, The 133 Our Day in the Sun 30 (cr) Our Friends the Hayseeds 333 (cr) Out of the Inkwell 140 Out of the Past 351 (cr) Out of Season 275 Overlanders, The 136 Overlord 275 Owl and the Pussycat, The 41 Oz 349 (cr)

Pacino, Al 148 Painted Daughters 33 (st) Pal, George 20; 86 Palais de Danse 258, 259 Palance, Jack 55 Papadopoulos, John 25; 134 Paramount Pictures Corporation 183 Parer, Damien 305 Partie de Cartes, Une 109 Pasolini, Pier Paolo (d) 113-115, 180; 201; 296; 334­ 335 (f) Passion of Christ, The 297 Passenger, The 127; 367-369 (r,cr) Pastoral Hide-and-Seek 228 (r); 231 (r) Pathe's Animated Gazette 303 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid 39 Patterson, Gary 268 Patton 39; 304 Pearson, Jim 303 Penn, Arthur 261 Perth Film Festival 1975 201; 227-231 (r) Perverse Tales 201 Petersen 25; 69 (cr); 120, 121 (st); 126, 128; 214, 215; 246 Petites Amoureuses, Les 230 (r,st)

Cinema Papers Index 1975 — 3

INDEX VOLUME 2, 1975

Petri, Elio 142 .

Phantom of Liberia 157 (r, cr) Phar Lap Live« 349 (cr) Phillips Brothers 259 Phillips, Derek 134 Phillips, John 29 Plalat, Maurice 131, 132 Pickford, Mary 109 Picnic at Hanging Rock 32; 68; (cr); 125; 166; 217­ 219 (st); 246; 248; 264-265 (r, cr); 298-301 (st); 343; 347; 371 Picnic Productions 300 Picture Previewsrlnn of the Damned 80 Sunday Too Far Away 61 Picnic at Hanging Rock 152 Man from Hong Kong, The 153 Jaws 266-267 Australia After Dark 272 Salo or 120 Days in Sodom 336-337 The Trespassers 265 The Hindenburg 374 Picture Show Man, The 349 (cr) Piet Mondrien — A Film Essay 133 Pigsty 113 Pioneer of Scientific Film, A 133 Pink Panther Strikes Again, The 297 Pistol, The (Pistolen) 132 (r) Pit and the Pendulum, The 203 Plate is Crying, The 275 Play It as It Lays 41 Play Misty for Me 16 Playbox Cinema 232-234 (a,I) Please Don't Step on My Sunshine 141 Plugg 159 (cr); 73, 74 (st); 104; 128 Plummer, Christopher 366 Poem 313 Polanski, Roman 51, 52; 105; 201; 297 Policewomen 41 Policy statements — FRTVB 226; AFC 226, 273; National Library 223 P o lla c k , S y d n e y : on a c to rs , d ir e c tio n and screenwriters 320-324 (l,f) Poor Cow 73 Poor Maria 212 (r) Porter, Eric 141 Portnoy’s Complaint 307 (st), 308 Poseidon Adventure 11 Posse 275 Power, The 19 Power, John 25 Power and the Glory, The 169 (cr.st) Prehistoric Hayseeds 333 (cr) Premature Burial, The 203 Preobrazhenskaya, Olga 109, 110 Price, David 30 Prime Angelica, La 131 (r,st) Private Collection 234 Probyn, Brian (c) 25, 73-75 (i,f) Producers 15-17; 203-206, 284; 244-246; 298-301, 377; 306-309, 382; 340-343 Producers and Directors’ Guild of Australia 280 P ro du ctio n Reports: C addie 243-249, Don’s Party 339-347 Production Surveys 67-72; 159-163; 251-255; 349­ 353 Professional Musicians’ Union of Australia 171 Projectionists — See Albert Wright Promised Lands 112; 177 (cr); 213 (r) Promised Woman 68 (cr); 104 Prudential Theatres 37 Providence 297 Pure Shit 201; 229 (r); 253 (cr) Putting on the Rite 134

0 Quarter, The 8-9; 104-105; 200-201; 296-297 Queensland 253(cr) Quiet Flows the Don 330-331 (st)

Raging Bull 105 Rain People, The 203, 204 (st) Rains Came, The 12 (st) Raped, Slapped and Ignored 39-41 (a) Rank Organisation 117; 182 Rats of Tobruk, The 44 (cr), 45 (st) Rat Life and Diet in North America 211 (r) Rayfield, David 324 Red and Green 221 Red Berry Tree, The 275 (r) Reflections in a Golden Eye 203 Redford, Robert 321, 322 Red Psalm 135, 178 Reich, Wilhelm 235 Reifenstahl, Lenl 8 Remodelling Her Husband 109 Removalists, The 61 (cr); 104; 123; 147-148; 244 (r.cr) Renovations in Earthquake Hotel; A Look at the New Zealand Film Industry 325-328, 380 (a) Requiem No. 1 220 (st), 221, 222 Restrictive Trade Practices and film 35-38, 82; 119, 182 Return to Paradise 76 Revere, Dorothy 19 Reynolds, Burt 54, 55 Rhinoceros 9 Ricardo, Sergio 132 Ride a White Horse 29, 30 (cr) Rider on the Rain 39 (st) Rlefenstahl, Lein 8, 110 Rite, The 201; 297 Roadshow 36; 126 Robbins, Matt 205 Roberts, Rachel 301 Robertson, Cliff 54, 55; 322 Robinson 70 (cr) Robinson, Casey 121 Robinson Crusoe on Mars 19, 22 (st), 23 Robson, Mark 16 Roe, David 232-234 (I) Rogopag 113 (st) Rolling Home 8; 29 (st), 30 (cr); 70 (cr) Romance of Runnibede, The 136 Romantic Englishwoman, The 127 (st) Ross Wood Productions 77 Ruabto, La 277 Ruth, Roy Del 19

4 — Cinema Papers Index 1975

Russell, Ken 111 Rydge, Norman 32; 36; 125

s

S, Bruno 229,230 Sagan, Leontlne 210 St. John’s Chariot 67(cr) Salkind, Alexander & Ilya 203 Salo 297;335 Sambizanga 209; 212(r,st) San Francisco 11,13 San Quentin 20 Sara, Sandor 189 Sargeant, Joseph 148 Sarky, Daniel 59 San Sebastion Film Festival 1975 277(r) Satan in Sydney 333(cr) Santuary 307 Saura, Carlos 131 Scarecrow 39;380 Scars 221 (st),220,282 Scenes From a Marriage 9;63-64(r,cr);297 Schell, Maximilian 277 Schloendorff, Volker 277 School’s Out 71 (cr) Schleslnqer, John 177 Scobie Malone (Helga’s Web) 120,121 ;159(cr) Scola, Ettore 276 Scorcese, Martin 105;149,150;297 Scott, George C .204 Scriptwriters 324 Sea Around Us, The 169 Sea Beast, The 19 Sea of Joy 29,30(cr) Sea Wolf, The 19 Searchers, The 190 Secret, The 132,189(r,st) Secret of Paradise Beach, The 349(cr) Section Special« 127(st);263(r,cr) Segoloff, Nat 8 Seige of Pinchgut 136 Sembane, Ousmane 276 Semler, Dean 25 Semprun, Jorge 263 Senior Master Hofer 135(cr) Sensations 128 Sentimental Bloke, The 32; 136 September Storm 22 Serpico 105 Sestier, Maurice 303 Seven Arts 203,204 Seven Beauties 297 7 Keys Films 36;124 Sex Aids and How to Use Them 9 Sexism in film 207-209,286(a) Shadowman 155(r,cr) Shadow of Lightning Ridge 44(cr) Shapiro, Susan 211 Shahid-Saless, Sohrab 189;275 Sharp, Allen 261 Shatter 73 Shepherd, Bill 46-47,90(1) Sherman Act 38,82 Shinoda, Masahlro 131 Shout at the Devil 105 Shub, Esther 109,110 Sidecar Racers 16,17;34;105;159(cr);246 Silence and Cry 135(r) Silverftsh King, The 134 Sllverstein, Red 105 Siren, The 19 Sirk, Douglas 271 Sixty Second Spot 133 Slaughterhouse 5 15,16 Slippery Wet 29 Smeaton, Bruce 25;165-167(l,f) Smiley 77 Smiley Gets a Gun 77 Smith, Arthur 46 Smith, Beaumont(d.p) 332-333(f) Smith, Howard 228 Smithy 34;46;90;136 Snow Drops Bloom in September 135(r) Snowfall 189(r) Snow, Sand and Savages 244 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 140 Solo Flight 71 (cr) Solomons Housing 351 (cr) Some Like It Hot 8 Somersaulter, Lilian 134 Something Evil 107,108 Sons of Matthew 44(cr), 45(st); 136;217 Sound of Music, The 208(st); 307(st), 308 Soundtracks 176;282;375,378 Sontag, Susan(d) 110:112,177(|,f); 210,213.

South Australian Film Corporation 104; 163-201; 253; 255; 300; 353 S o v ie t C in e m a : an In te r v ie w w ith S e rg e i Gerasimov 329-331, 373 Special effects — see Byron Haskill Spiders Strategy 142,191 Spielberg, Steven(d) 106-109,190(1,f); 382 Spirit of ’76 229(r) Splashdown 30(cr) Splendid Fellows 333(cr) Sporting Proposition, A 68(cr) Spy Force 122 Squatter’s Daughter, The 46,48-49(st) Squeaker’s Mate 166 Ssssnake 309 Stacey’s Gym 201 Starkiewlcz, A&P 134 Statue of Liberty 134 Stay Hungry 201 Steam Train Passes, A 25,134 Stephane, Nicole 177 Steppenwolf 230 Still Life 189(cr) Sting, The 15;39;200;297;308(st),309 Stirring 25;71(cr) Stone 76,78(st);125;128;248 Stone Killer, The 39 Storm Boy 349(cr) Story of Adele H., The 277(r,st); 297 Story of O, The 201 Strangers of the Night 44 Streetfighter, The 128 Streisand, Barbra 39,41 Strike 331 Stringer 71 (cr) Strong is the Seed 76 Student, The 253(cr) Such Good Friends 41 Sugarland Express 107,109,190;308(st),382 Sully, Wally 76

Summer Shadows 161(cr) Sumpter, David 30 Sunday Bloody Sunday 177 Sunday Too Far Away 25; 61 (st, cr); 104; 120; 121 (st); 127, 128; 154 (r, cr); 189 (r); 217-219 (st); 246; 286; 342 Sundowners, The 136 Sunshine 8; 13 Sunshine Sally 136 Super Vixens 128 Surf Movies 26-30(a,f) Surf about 30(cr);161(cr) Surf Trek to Hawaii 27,30(cr) Surfing Odyssey 30(cr) Surfing Roundabout 30(cr) Surfing the Southern Cross 30(cr) Surfing Years, The 30(cr) Surrender in Paradise 350(cr) Suzuki, Richard 59 Swastika 133 Sweet Movie 133; 167:235-240 Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny 297 Swiss Conspiracy, The 105 Sydney Film Festival 1975 129-136:178,179 Sydney Filmmakers' Co-Operative Ltd 171;272 Szabo, Istvan 189

T Tabiate Bijan 189 (r) Taking of Pelham 123 148 (r. cr) Tall Timbers 46 Tamnes, Diane 212 Tanaka, Kinuyo 213 Tanner, Alain 131 Tariff Board Report on Motion Pictures and Television, 1973 36-38; 123 Tassis, Sir George 124 Tavlani, Paolo & Vittorio 130 Taxi Driver 297 Taylor, Delores 151, 154 Taylor, Grant 21 Taylor, Kit 21 Taylor, Rod 21 Tarkovsky, Andrei 63 Ten Commandments, The 258 Ten Moods of Love 134 10 Rillington Place 360 Tenant, The 297 Terayama, Shujl 228, 231 Territorians, The 71 (cr) Test Pictures 325 (st); 380 Texas Chain Saw Massacres, The 128 That’s Entertainment 48 Theatres, Australian 123-125, 185-198 Theatres and Films Commission of New South Wales and Queensland 37 Theatre (Australian) Ownership Patterns 185-186 Theorem 113, 115; 335 (st) They Shoot Horses Don’t They? 324 (st) Third Man, The 74 This is My House . 133 This Passing Life 311 This Property is Condemned 204; 324 This Transient Life 311 Thomas, G. Wayne 29 Thompson, Jack (ac) 25; 120-122 (t.f.); 246 Thompson, Peter 29 Thornhill, Michael 8; 123; 218-219 Three Days of the Condor 320-324 Three in One 76 (st), 78 (st) Three Musketeers, The 203 Thring, Frank Snr. 124 Trow Away Your Books, Let’s Go Into the Street 231 THX 1138 205 Time to Die, A 201 Tirl, Jlrl 132 Titanic 11 To Die in Madrid 177 Tommy 104; 127 Too Late for Tears 19 Too Late the Hero 54 Top Ten 1974 42-43 Top Ten 1975 376 Topo, El 132 Touch of Class, A 41; 111 Touch of Zen 230 (r) Towns, Robert 51 Townies and Hayseeds 333 (cr) Touched in the Head 319 (r,st) Towering Inferno 11, 13, (st); 15; 297 Tracks 30 (cr) Trade Practices Act 104, 119; 200 Traitors 142 Treasure Island 20 Trenchard-Smlth, Brian 104; 200; 162, 262 Trerise, Bill 76 The Trespassers 365 Trial of Billy Jack, The 151, 154 (r, cr) Trilogy 159 (cr) Triple Background Projector 20 Triple Echo, The 177 Truck Stop Women 128 True Story of Eskimo Nell, The 25; 52-53 (r,cr); 104; 128; 200 Truffaut, Francois 277; 297 Tuzolto Utca 25 189 (r) Twentieth Century-Fox 118; 124: 183; 200; 296; 308 25 Fireman’s Street 189 (r) Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing 20 Twist, The 201 Two People Came 16 Typhoon Treasure 169 (cr.st)

u Udenzia La 130 (r, st) Ullman, Llv 64;105;111 Ulzana’s Raid 54 Uncivilised 44(cr) Under Western Eyes; Notes towards the Australian Cinema 216-219, 286(a) Understudy, The 71 (cr) Unfinished Sentence, The 276 Union Theatres Ltd 303 United Artists Corporation 183;296 Unlersal Copyright Convention 317 Universal Studios 15,17; 183; 200; 296 Uta 311,313,314(st) Untitled 351 (cr)

V Valley Forge 134 Van Vooran, Monique 53 Varda, Agnes 8;110;211 Vase de Noces 128(st);201;230(r) Vaughan, Martin 25 Verhavert, Roland 131 Verrohung Dea Franz Blum, Die 130(r,st) Very Curious Girl, A 110;210(r,st) Vikings, The 360 Village Theatres Group 35-37 Village Theatres Ltd 126,187 Vincent Library 125 Violent Saturday 360 Violence and women 39-41 Visconti, Luchino 143 Vocation, The 133 Von Sydow, Max 321 Voyage, The 269(r,cr)

Wajda, Andrzej 276 Wäke of the Bounty, The 44 (cr), 45 (st); 217 Wake in Fright 120, 121; 136; 189; 200; 244 Wald, Terry 20 Walkabout 200 Wallis, Hal 20 Walsh, Raoul 19 Walt Disney Productions 183, 200 Wang Yu, Jimmy 262 War of the Worlds 11; 19, 20, 86 Warhol, Andy 53, 54 Warner Bros. 183; 204; 296; 309 Warner, Jack L. 19 Watt, Harry 136 Wasserman, Lou 382 Way We Like It, The 29 Way We Were, The 41 We Lover Each Other So Much 276(r) We’re Alive 211 Weaver, Jack! 148 Weir, Peter 2~18-219; 264; 299, 301 Welles, Orson 128 Wenders, Wlm ’ 134 Werewolf of Washington, The 229(r,st) Westralian Newa 378 Wertmuller, Lina 110; 297 Wexler, Haskell 212 What's It Like on the Receiving End of Australian Film Criticism? 214-215(a) Wheels Across the Wilderness 200 When the Evening Comes 31 When a Man Loves 19 While the Billy Boils 133 Whittacker, Johnnie 108 White Heat 109 White Wall, The 276 Who Killed Jenny Langby? 25; 134 Who Seeks a Handful of Gold 275(cr) Wild Bunch, The 13; 39 Wilder, Billy 8; 15; 62, 63 Wilder, Gene 54 Wildlife 71 (cr) Will-E-Twlst - Rediscovered 355-357(a,cr) Williams, David 125; 185 Williams, John 282 Williamson, David 9; 25; 147;340 Willy Dynamite 382 Wind and the Lion, The 369 (r, cr) Winkler, Paul (d.e.sc) 220-222, 2820,f) Winter’s Tale, A 161(cr) Winstanley 229(r,st) Wise, Robert 16 With Bandaged Eyes 277(r) Witzlg, Paul 8; 29; 30 .

Wokabout Bilong Tonten 25; 228 (r) Woman at the Store, The 327(st); 380 Womanhouse 211(r) Women’s Film Festival 1975 8; 110; 210-213(r) Women in Love 111 Women of the Rhondda 211 (r) Women and violence 39, 41 Wood, Ross (c,p) 21; 76-79(1,f) Wood, Sid 378 Woznlak, Vicky 319 WR - Mysteries of the Organism 133; 142; 235, 237(st), 240; 367 Wright, Albert 257-259(1)

X Y Xala

276(r)

Yates, Peter 297 Yesterday Girl 227 Yoiyama Semareba 311 York, Michael 39 You’re a Big Boy Now 203,204(st) Young Frankenstein 53-54(r,cr) Young Wave Hunters, The 30(cr)

Z Z 142-144 Zabriskie Point 367 Zanuck, Darryl 19 Zanuck, Richard (p) 16; 306-309, 382 (I) Zanuck and Brown: the Biggest Splash 306-309, 3820) Zanuck Brown Company 16 Zardoz 209 (st); 297 Zeno, Thierry 128; 201; 230 Zetterling, Mai 8; 211, 213 Zizzem Zam 351 (cr) Zodiak Fair-Ground 253(cr)

DAVID GREIG

only just glimpse them, like when you are on a train. They are little glimpses that he gets and he makes som ething of la te r, and the culmination of the ceremony is the woman. All these minor things con­ tribute — the whole wouldn’t be right without them.

There is a conscious use of sym­ bols in “Ceremony”: the artist’s suit is suggestive of a cage; the shop win­ dow dummies with their sexually repressive details of hands crossed to cover genitals . . .

Yes, but these come across as life giving things and not destructive things — the dummies lead to the woman later in the film.

So the film is ultimately very op­ timistic . . .

Yes. W hile you are going through the states of mind as depicted in Ceremony, it’s a very depressing time, but it’s just a matter of realizing that there isn’t ever any concluding thing. I guess it’s an appreciation of life. Even if you’re depressed for a while, there always seems to be some higher purpose to it. That’s probably what I was trying to get across.

I always knew I had to show the worth of these moments, the value of everything that’s around us, even if we are sometimes blind to them.

Do you have any aspirations to do features with actors and dialogue?

it’s not a literal thing.

when things spark off — you may see colours or something like that.

But even so, it’s like you have a So, it’s meant to be a joyous thing length of time, you cut pieces out of as well. Things are uplifting and It and shuffle them around, whereas that’s got to come across. That’s ithe others don’t really have a time why the ending of Ceremony is like it is — with the fire. ¡sequence . . .

In trying to get over the fact that By “claustrophobic” I don’t mean it was the artist’s own world, it just depressing, but rather “very con­ wasn’t simple enough. It’s also tained”. The first time the artist perhaps why I don’t like the film looks out of his room he is framed in now. blackness — as are the other images I was thinking more about the of people when the camera tracks people who would be watching the past their windows. Everyone is con­ film, and believed I could present tained within this frame, so this im­ something closer to their ex­ age relates him to the other people perience, something they could feel he sees . . . at ease with, and then gradually in­ Yes. Everyone he sees, every im­ troduce the elements that suggest that things don’t have to happen in age, is comprised of as many elements as he is and is as much a a literal time sense. part of life as he is. You could, for Even when the artist goes out into instance, make a film about any the streets, the film has a claus­ one of those windows he passes.

I also saw that business with the trophobic feel. It’s still very much woman in the red dress as being a his world, his point of view . . . dance; an abstract approach to the When you say its claustrophobic use of two figures. So even that sec­ do you mean it’s depressing? I tion of the film has elements of didn’t want it to be a depressing crushing and frustration and things view of the world. I think it’s fan­ like that. But hopefully, it also has, tastic, and hopefully there are times as a background, that feeling of

ritual, which only comes to the fore when he is poking the fire and it starts up again. I hope the film doesn’t come across as being a heavy or depressing, because it is about the creation of life.

I don’t think it does. It’s a journey through his mind, and positive things come out of it. You know some­ thing is going to continue, even though it’s an incredible struggle — as in any creative process . . .

When he was moving around the streets, I was trying to suggest that he was all the time being drawn on by something — a ritual that went on and on. I did this with the track­ ing shots which I always tried to have going in the same direction to enhance the feeling that he is being drawn along by something out of his control. He is just a vehicle for something greater.

When the artist is walking around the streets at night, he barely reacts to anything he sees. He is almost a sleepwalker . . .

He doesn’t have the time to spend on these little things, he can

I don’t think very far ahead.

When I started making Ceremony I never would have dreamed that I’d be making a documentary about a circus. I never think of myself runn­ ing my own production company or any other sort of dream like that.

I’ll just keep making whatever oc­ curs to me. As long as I never find that once I have finished one film I don’t have something else to go on­ to, I don’t care which way I am heading. t By borrowing $80Q0 for your next film, a documentary about the Swiss Circus Royale, you have gone into debt . . .

Yes, that film grew out of directing another film on Mel­ bourne’s entertainment history.

The film dealt, to a large extent, with travelling circuses. The $8000 is just to shoot it.

But you are negotiating for further production costs . . .

Again, I always stop myself from thinking ahead. If you think ahead in an optimistic way, fair enough, you might reach that sort of peak where your optimism took you — which would be good — but, if you don’t, then it isn’t worth thinking ahead optimistically. Thinking ahead pessimistically is fatal. If I thought ahead, I never would have borrowed the money c started shooting. * Cinema Papers, June-July — 49

The Australian Film Commission so that. . .

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can produce

can direct

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can operate

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can assist

can grip

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which all makes for an Australian Film Industry

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The following interviews were conducted at the “OZ” production office by Scott Murray.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 51

PRODUCTION REPORT

CHRIS LOF VEN / LYN E HELMS Producer-Director / Co-Producer

How did “Oz” come about?

Helms: That comes into it, of Though “ O z” is director Chris Lofven’s first feature, he has course. a long record o f successful shorts — in particular, “ House with a Secret” , “ Forgotten Loneliness” and “The Warning” , all o f As much as any other con­ which won awards at International Festivals o f Young Film­ sideration? makers in M ilan, Italy. Lofven’s best-known film, however, is Helms: Well, we are not a big the 70 minute “Part One— 306/P art Two— The Beginning” , a production house. We haven’t got film which played to overflowing houses in the early days o f the the facilities behind us that people Melbourne Filmmakers’ Co-operative. like Tim Burstall or Fred Schepisi In the following Interview, Lofven and co-producer Lyne have and that is a hindrance in Helms begin by discussing the genesis o f “ Oz7. itself However, the Commission had sufficient confidence in the film — possibly because of Chris’ previous awards and his proven ability to make films.

Lofven: W ell, Lyne and I went to London in 1971 hoping to break into feature films. At that time, things were slowly happening for filmmakers in Australia but things were getting worse for film­ makers in Britain. We stayed in London for three and a half years and I worked as an assistant editor for some time. I also did a lot of freelance editing for BBC Televi­ sion, with Lyne as assistant.

We produced a 36 minute film about youth in London, but it wasn’t the picture we had hoped to Did you have to keep going back make and our chances looked slim.

Then, Kris and David Williamson to the AFC for money? s ta y e d w ith us w h ile The Helms: No. They knew we were Removalists was playing in London desperate to shoot in Summer and and they pointed out that we would that the budget would blow if we have a much better chance of didn’t shoot it then. So, very kindly, getting a feature off the ground in wonderfully, they helped us out Australia. However, I didn’t want with the loan. to go back without a script, or at least a basic idea. I decided that it On present Australian standards, must be a rock and roll movie and this budget is very low. No one real­ ly believed that we could do it, yet th a t it m ust be relevant to Australia. David Bowie was big in we successfully have done it. Most London at this time and I thought it people think it is a miracle but it’s really been the result of hard work would be interesting to have a and co-operation from the actors Bowie-like central figure. I wanted and crew. It is a first. to use Graham Matters as that rock star because I’d been aware of his Co-Producers Chris Lofven and Lyne Helms. Lofven also wrote and directed Oz, his talent ever since we played together “The Trespassers” had a fairly . first feature. similar budget though, didn’t it? in a rock band.

There was a theory floating the final draft and sent it to the the budget.

One of the biggest struggles was around that all the best movie Film Commission. They were quite Helms: Yes. stories had been done and that enthusiastic about it and agreed to to convince people that something everything was merely an old story put up 60 per cent of the budget. new, different — a road movie for There are many in the Australian told in a different way. My The next task was to find the rest of young people — could be a success. industry who suggest that “The favourite old movie was The the money . . .

Trespassers” is not going to do well Helms: That was a really difficult Have you repaid the $25,000?

Wizard of Oz, so I thought that and that this will go heavily against might make a good basis for an thing particularly as, at that stage the AFC’s involvement in future 12 months ago, nothing had been a Helms; No. However, once we $150,000 films. Given this, did you Australian rock and roll movie.

We returned to Australia and big success except for Alvin Purple have the double-head it is .going to feel there was a real need for you to went bush where I wrote the script. and Barry MacKenzie, We be a lot easier to raise the $25,000 'succeed?

The first draft was submitted to the approached every person we knew — people will be convinced of the Lofven: Well, ever since the Film, Radio and Television Board had money — from close friends, to market value of the film. but was rejected. I wrote a second people in business, people in televi­ New Wave in France in the late Why do you think some investors 1950s and early 1960s, I’ve felt that draft and submitted it to the sion — and really had a hard time it must be possible to make good Australian Film Development Cor­ trying to get it together. Eventually, knocked “Oz” back? low budget films. I’m still convinc­ poration and eventually received Greater Union/BEF came through Helms: Because it was something ed of that now, especially after see­ some script development money to with part of the money. This all develop the final draft. That was happened around Christmas, so it new, something different. It is very ing Oz come together. I know it can around about March of last year. had taken six months to reach that down to earth, very real and it sets be done. stage. We wanted to start pre­ out to depict life in a certain section The next movie will cost more That must have been around the production in January because the of the community — and that because we can’t ask cast and crew time the AFC was starting up . . .

February weather was perfect for a frightened a lot of people. to work for such low figures again. hot, outdoor movie. The Film For the first movie, however, it is Lofven: Yes, it was just prior to Commission then gave us a per­ You don’t think it may have been important to make it on such a the AFC’s establishment. I finished sonal loan of $25,000 to complete due to your lack of experience? budget. It doesn’t look like a $150,52 — Cinema Papers, June-July

PRODUCTION REPORT

000 film and I don’t think an audience which pays the same price to see this movie as they would to see a multi-million dollar American movie, would be able to say that this movie was made for less. To me, it looks a million dollars.

How did it feel making a 35mm feature as opposed to directing your 16mm shorts?

Lofven: Well, Oz is a unique ex­ perience for me in that it was the first time I’d ever directed actors.

With my other films, which I also photographed and edited, I wasn’t really conscious of the actors’ per­ formances. Nor was I used to hav­ ing someone else doing these jobs.

This was hard to get accustomed to, though I am obviously still con­ trolling the film from the point of view of photography and editing.

I think the week of rehearsal was invaluable for me and the actors as it gave us a chance to talk and find out about each other.

Did the AFC, at any stage, wish to change the budget or script?

Helms: The final draft was accepted straightaway and there were no great battles over money.

The accessors said they felt it was a good script and a commercially viable one. Oz is made for an audience that hasn’t been catered for till now — the 16 to 24 year-old kids. Every other film has catered for a much older or much younger audience, and this is the first one in Australia to really cater for this a |e group. .

Was this the basis of your proposal to the AFC? Lofven: Yes, in that some people have suggested that the first film in a category stands a very good chance of doing well commercially.

It has been proved with Alvin and Picnic, and Oz will hopefully prove it in its field. I think it would be wrong to make a follow-up to it like was done with Alvin and Bazza. The second Bazza and the second Alvin didn’t do nearly as well as the first ones and I think it would be wrong to try and believe that you could do that with Oz. I’ve still got an obsession with rock and roll and I probably will have for a long time, so the next movie is obviously going to be in­ fluenced by that — even though it will be totally different to Oz.

Do you apply any particular film theories to the way you direct?

Playing it tough — Gary Waddell as the Bikie and Joy Dunstan as Dorothy.

much relevance to today’s film­ going audience — purely because of the size of the place.

Where in Melbourne would you like to release “Oz”?

Lofven: Somewhere like the Odeon or Rapallo, which are Greater Union theatres. I think both of these theatres are the right size for Oz, whereas places like the Forum and Bercy have reputations for showing big, multi-million dollar films.

not even considering the overseas market.

Do you really think you can break into the overseas market?

Lofven: I believe that the best overseas market will be the U.S. because they have a thing about Oz as a word — it being based on the original Wizard o f Oz. They now use Oz as a product name and I believe American youth will iden­ tify with Oz as easily as Australian youth will.

Helms: There’s talk of the State in Sydney but I’m not sure yet. It really depends on the double-head screenings and what the investors think.

Lofven: The reason for the State is that, releasing Oz as we are in the holidays, it could get sim ilar audiences to Tommy. We are ob­ viously worried by the overhead of a theatre like the State and so we would rather see it in a medium size theatre where it could have a con­ tinued run without exorbitant overheads.

In the contract with BEF, how How would you like it to be much control do you have in terms of released in the U.S.? Through a ma­ the number of prints ordered, the jor, or through a semi-major like advertising budget, the television Corman? rights, whatever?

Lofven: Hopefully, the Film Helms: We have agreed on the Commission will take the film to number of prints. With regard to Cannes next year and that could advertising, since we are based in lead to U.S. distribution. If that Melbourne we intend to personally fails, we’ll go overseas with the film get the ball rolling. They are quite ourselves. happy to let us tie-up with whatever co n tra-d eals we had during You’ll leave it till Cannes next shooting. The main push will be the year . . . selling of the music because the music is very important and very Lofven: Yes. We are putting out good. feelers already but we are not terribly conscious of overseas dis­ Are you g o in g to open tribution — we are basically film­ simultaneously in Melbourne and makers. However, we are confident Sydney? that Oz will do well in the U.S. and we would like to go with it and en­ Helms: Within a day or so. sure it gets the right exposure.

Lofven: It can’t be exactly the same day — it isn’t physically You mentioned earlier that you possible to stage what we have put “Oz” up to the Film and Televi­ planned in two places at the same sion Board, and that would have time. For instance, we want to have presumably meant a $25,000 film. Is all the vehicles used in Oz involved there much difference between the in the premiere screenings. conceptions of the two?

But isn’t it better to make a return in a short burst than over a long period of time?

What chance do you think there is of getting the $500,000 box-office gross necessary to break even?

Lofven: Certainly, but it is a risk and even though we are confident about Oz, it’s frightening to have it in a theatre like the State. It is an old world theatre and doesn’t have

Lofven: Well, this is why I wanted to make sure the film was on budget because it will be fairly easy to make that money back — as well as make a profit. And that is

Greater Union will presumably exhibit the film . . .

Helms: Yes. It is being released in August in M elbourne and Sydney, and will then go on to the other states.

Have any venues been chosen?

Lofven: Well, if the film had been made through the Australia Coun­ cil, it would have had to be a lot simpler, a lot tighter and probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as what we ended up with.

Helms: We would have never been able to stage the spectacular climax that we now have.

Lofven: I look at films in terms of the overall film, but more than anything else from a visual point of view. I had a very strict conception of how Oz should be made and this didn’t allow the actors very much freedom, which I think made the actors feel resentful at times.

However, this is probably in­ evitable when you have got a film­ maker making a film rather than, say, a director who is working from somebody else’s script. You know exactly what you want and the ac­ tors have to become more or less your puppets, which, though it is not good for actors, is very rewarding from my point of view.

What about in terms of photographic style?

Lofven: I wanted the film to have a very naturalistic style and I talked to Dan Burstall about this. We didn’t want the film to look like a movie, but rather like a natural ex­ perience. I was delighted by the effe c t th a t D an got in his photography — nothing was overlit, it was as low-key and natural as it could have possibly been.

I thought it was very important to use a young cameraman who hadn’t gone through the mill, one who hadn’t done a picture but who really wanted to do one. He could then put a lot into it.

It was the same with the key peo­ ple we chose.

There wasn’t any resistance on the part of the investors to you using so many inexperienced people . ..

A lot of the people we approach­ ed felt that we were going about the film the wrong way. They felt that we should use well-known people, and one or two prospective in­ vestors suggested that we use American actors and music since our potential market was the U.S. We felt, however, that there was no way Oz could be made on that basis. Oz is a very Australian movie and it had to be dealt that way. I still believe that we will get through to American audiences.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 53

PRODUCTION REPORT

JOY DUNSTAN “ D orothy” Chris apparently chose you while watching you sing at the Flying Trapeze cafe . . .

Yes. We usually had people come up after the show and say they were from advertising agencies and how they could do great things for us.

So when Chris approached me and said, “ I want to put you in the movies” , I said “Oh yeah” . It was kind of a new approach, though.

Joy Dunstan, who plays the lead character of Dorothy, began her career as a singer at local concerts in Heyfield and Maffra. In 1971, she enrolled at the State College o f Victoria, Ballarat, but returned to singing in country pubs two years later.

After moving to Melbourne in 1974, Dunstan appeared in dramatic productions at La M ama and local repertories. She then formed the musical comedy quartet, Buckly, Hope and Nun. “ O z” is Dunstan’s first film role.

Yes. The only thing I had done with regard to films before was the soundtrack for John Duigan’s film, The Firm Man.

In what ways?

Did you write the music?

I think she is a little bit more mature — especially at the end where she is able to reject what she doesn’t want to become entangled with. She is, perhaps, a little bit more naive also.

No, John Duigan wrote it. He was going to sing the songs but dis­ covered his voice didn’t come over very well and decided someone else would have to do them. But as he already had put down the tracks, and in a strange key for most people, I was asked to try out. It was a nice accident.

Was there any attempt on your part to make Dorothy identifiable with a certain age group?

Had you done any acting before “Oz”?

As originally written by Chris, she is identifiable with kids today.

She is, after all, a 16 year-old girl who wants to sleep with the Wizard because he is a big pop star, : and a lot of kids are into that.

Only at La Mama.

Because your principal aim had always been to become a singer . . .

Ned Kelly as the mean Truckie — prior to his attempted rape of Dorothy.

How did you find being in front of the cameras for the first time?

Very strange. The first day I was completely in another world. I walked out in my Dorothy gear and make-up to where we were going to do the first shot and there were all these people I had never seen before. They were looking at me because I was going to be doing the first shot — I was going to be Dorothy. After a couple of days, however, I felt as if I’d been doing it for a long time.

Ultimately, I didn’t find it dif­ ficult because I was chosen for be­ ing close to what Chris wanted — even down to the mannerisms. So, I just did everything in as relaxed and natural a way as possible. I have never been a groupie, but Dorothy didn’t really make it either.

to be familiarized with. Also, if I had done many more rehearsals I wouldn’t have been as natural as I hope I was.

character of Dorothy?

Well I liked her. She knew what she was about, or she thought she did. She was, however, very im­ pressionable and gets taken in by Did you shoot in sequence? the Good Fairy who tells her of the We altered a few sequences big pop star. She decides to find out around but we basically shot in the who he is but when she finds him, order the characters appeared in and this is the good part about her, the story — which I think made it she realises that the scene isn’t what easier for the cast. The strangeness she should be part of and gets out. of the experience at the start made Is your Dorothy very close to the things harder for me, but I hope I Dorothy of ‘The Wizard of Oz’? was able to overcome that.

You don’t think there is a danger in shooting this way because one is more nervous at the start — which in this case is also the beginning of the film — and this could give the film a weak opening . . .

The rehearsals before shooting: were they basically a familiarization with character?

There could be, but had it not worked this way we would have done something about it. Shooting it in order also meant that whatever nervousness might have been there would correspond to the ner­ vousness of meeting someone for the first time.

Yes, but for me there wasn’t a lot

How would you describe the

54 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Do you, therefore, see Dorothy as a character symptomatic of this period in history? Is she an everywoman going through situations which, though some may be symbolic, a lot of other kids are also going through?

Yes. I think the film is a com­ ment on the rock and roll scene to­ day and a fairly realistic one.

Dorothy is, however, a little bit different from the groupies you find today.

“Oz” is your first film . . .

Yes, though now it’s more a question of a combination of the two. I haven’t done much acting so far and perhaps when I get into more I’ll find out which I prefer.

Oz is about a modern-day scene, not a modernized Dorothy, and the whole thing is symbolic.

Yes, though in The Wizard o f Oz she is obviously a lot younger and has a different slant on things.

Also, I don’t think she used her friends quite as much as Dorothy does in Oz. In the book she thought: “Oh, this is nice. We’ll all go along together to meet the Wizard and see if he can get me back to Kansas.” In Oz, she uses them much more to achieve her goal.

How conscious were you then of the original Dorothy?

Kids amaze me today because I don’t think I was like them at that age. Even the 13 and 12 year-olds seem pretty tough in a way. I think this is one of the aspects that comes out in Dorothy’s character, in that she doesn’t mind hitch-hiking around and meeting up with different people.

Dorothy begins with a strong * desire to sleep with the Wiz and finishes with a degree of self­ knowledge. Is the viewpoint of the film a completely objective one, or does the film use the character to make a moral comment?

I think the film is a lesson, but not in a heavy way. It is really just a matter of: “This is the decision she makes and that’s fair enough for her. Later she might change her mind but at this stage, after having been through all these things, this is the outcome for her.”

Her final position, then, is less determined by the filmmaker than by your knowledge of how that character would react . . .

Yes. I think she is one of those people who have a capacity to learn, and that’s why it ends that Well, the film is more than a way. It is a very natural modernization of the book or film. progression.

PRODUCTION REPORT

G A R Y W A D D ELL “ The Bikie”

I was first asked by Michael Price, who now acts with the Australian Performing Group, to do a part in The Wait at La Mama — which I did. It was quite successful. I then started acting with the APG in a community play called The Sport Show. It was about 20 mins long and was taken around to places like hospitals, fac­ tories and the wharves.

One o f the most exciting and controversial films o f the Aus­ tralian cinema is Bert D eling’s “ Pure Shit” . And a major fac­ tor in its success was the performance o f Gary Waddell as the speedy junkie, Lou. W addell’s first film role was in Rod Bishop’s “ Rainbow Farm” . This was followed by “ Pure Shit” and a brief part in “ M ad D o g ” . In his latest film, “ O z” , Waddell plays the Bi­ kie, or “ Lion” .

Did you get into that production because you wanted to be an actor, or because it was a group thing?

I was approached by a APG member who saw me in The Wait. I like being involved in community theatre, I think it is a worthwhile kind of project.

Did you have many rehearsals on either “Oz” or “Pure Shit”?

Did your first film role come out of APG associations?

Yes and no. It was really good having Bert there because he helped me a lot. If you weren’t sure of anything you could always get reassurance from him or the cameraman, Tom Cowen. It wasn’t a hard movie to work on because it was so enjoyable. The relationships between people on the film were always good.

Did you feel you had great affini­ ty with the character?

At that time, I felt pretty close to the character and what I tried to do was extend my own character to the extent of his — sort of highlight the high points of my life. I think that’s where all the speed comes from.

He is a believable character and though I tried to make him an anti­ hero, I wanted him to have a cer­ tain charisma. People can then look at him and m ake th eir own

I actually did a part in Mad Dog. I was a convict standing next to Hopper when he was breaking stones, but for some reason my line hit the floor. I was very scared that day and really didn’t like the role. I don’t know what I would do if I was offered a part in another high budget film.

Yes. I was very alienated from everybody. If I had worked on it for a couple of weeks, instead of one day, it may have been quite different.

No, though I did The Great Stumble Forward with a group which included a lot of APG members.

Your performance is quite in­ credible with all its hyperactive zapping about. Was it a difficult role to play?

“Rainbow Farm”, “Pure Shit” and “Oz” are much lower budget films than say, “Picnic” or “Mad Dog”. Do you only want to work in such films?

Did you find the atmosphere kind of depersonalized?

Have you done anything with the APG since?

Basically it did, because Robin Laurie and Jon Hawkes, who were in the APG, asked me to play a gangster in Rod Bishop’s Rainbow Farm. Bert Deling then offered me a part in Pure Shit, a film about the junkie scene in Melbourne. I also worked on its script with him.

because we have found out what we are looking for.

Michael Carman as the Mechanic and Garry Waddell as the Bikie. Waddell also played Lou in Bert Deling’s Pure Shit.

judgment. The film is basically social comment and each character a recognizable, social being.

liked, and I got the part — although they had already chosen somebody else.

Were you ever worried that he might be a difficult character to identify with, or understand?

Was the bikie someone you also identified with?

Yes. I wanted people to like him b u t a t th e sam e tim e ask themselves: “What’s he into and does he really like it? Is he a lonely sort of person?” Most of the time he is full of bull-shit — all bluff. He is always trying to keep ahead, but sooner or later it is going to catch up with him. It didn’t in the movie, but it was getting close at the end.

Why didn’t he get it in the movie?

It wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just the way it turned out.

How did your involvement with “Oz” come about?

I got a message through a friend that Chris and Lyne wanted to see me. So, I went up and did an audi­ tion on video for them, which they

Not in a physical sense, but he’s a kind of one-out character and I feel like that a lot of the time. Also, he is a lot of bluff — which I am given to now and then — and that’s probably why I identified with him.

Is the bikie character a fairly straight transportion of the lion into a modern setting?

Yes, pretty much so. He comes across as being really rough, but he is always backing off. It is only when he knocks the truck-driver out that he finds his courage. He feels really good because he has ac­ tually hit somebody.

The truck-driver, you see, has kidnapped Dorothy and taken her to a deserted house where he attempts to rape her. We turn up and noticing his truck outside, bolt it, knock him out and take her away. We all feel good about it

We did a week’s rehearsal on Oz, but on Pure Shit we had four weeks with video cameras. I suspect Bert felt the film was going to need a lot of work and as we had no money to fuck around with, he had to minimize the number of rehearsals during shooting.

Pure Shit was more of a personal film because most of the people were involved from the start, from the scripting through. And when we did those rehearsals, the script was tightened a lot. As for shooting, Bert had this incredible knack of being able to do things right on the day.

Oz was a lot more rigid, it didn’t have the flexibility of Pure Shit. We kept to the script almost the whole time. It was really good to work on, but I didn’t have the same involve­ ment as with, say, Pure Shit.

Would you have preferred more involvement?

It’s pretty hard to say. I like to have as much involvement as I can, but Oz is a different scene — the money is higher and so are the risks. There was a lot to lose and Chris had to keep the film within certain boundaries—otherwise they could fuck up. On a few occasions I felt I needed to change something, but in the structure that we had, I couldn’t — which is understan­ dable.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 55

PRODUCTION REPORT

ROSS W ILSO N Composer In a way, I have tried to reflect what’s going on in Australian music in the film. I’ve used all Australian tunes — not just ones written by me as that would only cover one kind of music. But with a song like Beatiri Round the Bush, I knew Wayne Bird, who wrote it, and I knew the song well, even though it had never been recorded. It’s a real­ ly great song and it fitted a certain part of the film very well. So, rather than kind of fuck around saying, “ I’m going to do all the music and get all the credit,” I thought, “Well fuck it, it’s the perfect song and let’s use it.” .

I’ve been involved in Australian rock music for quite a while and been pretty successful at it, both as an artist and producer of other acts.

I produced Skyhooks and they turned out pretty well, and five years ago I was in Daddy Cool, which was the biggest thing. So, there is my music which reflects where I, as a rock figure, am today.

There is a Country and Western song written by Gary Young, who was the drummer with Daddy Cool.

He is into country music and that song won at the latest Wondong Country Music Festival, which is on every Labour day weekend. It is really a big event, a country scene, and about 20,000 people turn up to it. It is a big day out for truckies and the silent majority of country music lovers. So, that shows where country music is at today.

• The most successful music in Australia at the moment is that heavy, aggressive type of music from groups such as AC/DC. I threw a bit of that in because I thought it was a genuine kind of reflection of what is going on. Per­ sonally, I’m trying to create a soundtrack that is reflective of the cross-section of Australian popular music.

In the film there are two different versions of the lead song . . .

It was very interesting doing different versions of the same tune as it was the first I’ve actually had to. Living in the Land o f Oz is probably the most featured song in the movie: it appears early in the movie and then comes in again for a repeat on the chorus. Then at the end, there is a full blast of it. That was very interesting to do because I gave it a strong reggae rhythm — white-man’s soul without all the complications. Also, I made up a version that’s based on the chorus.

It is a very slow, floating kind of thing with the chorus line of, “We’re living in the land of Oz” repeated over and over again.

I did the same with You’re Dri­ ving Me Insane — a really crass 56 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Ross Wilson is undoubtedly one o f the biggest names in Aus­ country, yet only a few years ago tralian pop music, and his first success came while still at we were killing all the blacks. If you want to be a migrant, you usual­ school — the Pink Fink’s hit, Louie Louie. ly have to be white — they took a In 1967, he formed The Party Machine but left two years lot of trouble killing off the blacks later to play with Procession in Britain. Wilson returned to and they don’t want to do that all Australia in 1970 and formed The Sons of the Vegetal Mother, over again. There is a part in the though it was the side-band they formed, Daddy Cool, that ex­ film where Dorothy is wandering around the city and there are ploded on the music scene. migrants hanging out of their slum Since the overseas tours of Daddy Cool, its numerous doors. Yet, here we are in the revivals, and the brief M ighty Kong, Wilson has produced Sky­ wonderful land of Oz. So, the music is trying to point hooks — certainly the most successful Australian group at this out a few things like that — it is not time. just pure fantasy.

Wilson was commissioned by Lofven to supply a number of songs for “ O z” . The following interview begins with Wilson Is this the first film you have discussing his selection procedure. specifically written music for?

Yes. I got the gig because Chris liked what I had done in the rock and roll scene over the years.

Are you interested in doing more films?

Yes, I guess so. My primary in­ terest, however, is with general recording. This was the perfect thing for me, as far as films go, because I had already done a lot of songs which Fitted. I don’t think I’d enjoy trying to score a movie the way Bruce Smeaton does. I’m not that much of an accomplished musician, I’m just a song-writer come rock and roller. I know how to make rock records and that is what I’m doing here.

How big is the group you will be using?

It is rather small — your usual couple of guitars, bass and drums. I will then put down over-dubs of keyboards, percussion and so on.

I’m using a big selection of the well-known guys — just people I | think will fit the bill. I think some § of the music will come out as | sounding different to the usual local rock music because I am trying to avoid those guys who play on Ross Wilson during the recording of one of his songs for Oz. everything. I want a more spon­ taneous sound than you get from a version and a more sophisticated, album put out before the movie’s general session gig which can have spaced-out one. released. It will be an album more a ho-hum quality about it. or less in its own right, not like a lot Where you do use incidental of so u n d track album s where Who’s doing the vocals? music, will it be scored to the action? there’s a bit of music, a bit of dialogue and every other little thing Well, I will be on the four or five Well, the songs I’m recording are they can find — which can be pretty songs I have written. There are two more a less straight songs, keeping annoying. songs played by a group called in mind the basic timings Chris has Joe Joe Zep, one of which comes given me. It is not like a usual film Were the songs you specifically out of the juke-box Dorothy turns score where you write a piece of wrote for the film written on the on in the roadhouse. It is really music for a scene that has already basis of the script or on relevant dirgy Country and Western, and been edited, that goes exactly from scenes? it’s actually Joy singing. When one point to another. Oz is more Chris discovered her singing at the like American Graffiti where they On the script.

Flying Trapeze cafe, he thought she got a lot of old records and just cut Oz is a film about Australia, might be able to do this song really out the parts they needed. It’s really about what is going on here today. well. So, they called her round to the same with this.

The lyrics to the song Living in the the studio and worked it out.

I’m doing the tracks now and Land o f Oz, for example, are to do there is going to be a soundtrack with bringing migrants into this Continued on P. 59

PRODUCTION REPORT

LES LU X FO R D Editor There are a lot of non­ Les Luxford has spent most o f his film career editing and professionals in the film. Has this directing commercials. H e also cut documentaries for Sucreated any special problems for you preme but, as he says, these were little more than over-long as an editor? commercials.

There were a few technical Those advertisements directed by Luxford include the A FI problems. Some of the cast never award-winning John W est “ Slide” commercial, the new camdid the same thing twice and that paign for the Datsun 180B and the Tattslotto commercial made it very hard to make cuts where a man swims in a bath-tub supposedly filled with over a work. million dollars worth o f coins.

Continuity wise. . . “ O z” is Luxford’s first feature, and he was nearing the fine cut stage when interviewed at the editing rooms. ~ Yes. But not only did they never do the same thing twice, in different takes they did totally different things. And that not only means editing problems, but when it com­ es to laying in wild tracks you can’t cut them in because they haven’t said the same thing twice, or haven’t said the line in the same rhythm. We got over most of them, however.

Is there going to be any post­ dubbing?

Initially, we thought we had a few sound problems but I did a lot of cleaning up as I went along — which is not normal practice. We had a run through on a flat top with a very good speaker a few nights ago and I found the tracks a lot cleaner than I thought they would be. So, it is all 100 per cent and wild lines.

On “Oz”, were you editing while shooting was still going on?

No. We couldn’t do that on this film and I don’t really know whether it is a good idea or not.

What we’ve done on Oz is virtually fine cut as we went along. We would cut a sequence, look at it again and then make changes. Each sequence was fine cut before we started on the next.

This is the European way of editing. They generally edit only after the film has completed shooting, whereas the Americans and the British tend to rough cut as they go along. There are arguments both ways. If you are editing con­ current with shooting, the director can see what’s happening and if there is anything that is not happen­ ing right for cutting, it can be fixed on the spot. However, if the script is well planned and the director un­ derstands what editing is about, then it is not necessary — he can tell from the rushes if he is getting what he wants. Often, it is very mis­ leading to see rough cuts.

Ultimately, the decision is the director’s though I often wonder how many directors can look at cuts after 12 or 14 hours shooting and really understand what they are seeing. How many have the ability to critically look at their work and

director said. Obviously, you ^houldn t g0 °n f. coy P le^ely You should take what the director is trying to do and give it back the way you see it working best. If the director disagrees, then it is worth fightins about, Did chris sit in on most of the editing, or did he only look at completed sections?

T ,, J , I would cut a sequence and then show it to Chris. Usually, though, we had some prior discussion as to what was considered important in a sequence and as to what we should try and bring out.

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Do you prefer to work with the director absent?

Yes. After you have worked the material, you know exactly what is there. It is a bit pointless having a director sit with you before you know what the material is about.

Once you have done a cut and worked out the reasons for it, you can then argue about it. If a direc­ tor suggests trying something else, you then know if it has a chance of working or not.

Where are you getting your sound track done?

I want to get the best possible, of course, as I’m sure any filmmaker does. When I was still doing com­ mercials, nearly every track I had done was utterly hopeless. Color^ film used to be the best and were set | up to accept United Sound tracks. >• But the tracks, whether 16mm or w 35mm, didn’t sound as loud (and this was proven by the VU meter) Les Luxford working on that “ antiquated piece of equipment” , the Moviola. With as American tracks — even if under director, Chris Lofven. a microscope they proved to be 100 say, “ Yes that’s right” , or “ No, the European films you are think­ per cent modulated. No one could where you have gone wrong is ing of have brought up points that ever give me a reason for this. there.”? need thinking about, need reflec­ Australian laboratories use the tion, and therefore they have to same dubbers and the same optical One could argue that the leave certain cuts open. Generally, I recorders, and yet they couldn’t mainstream of Australian editing is think that when Europeans attempt ever get the punch that American more American than European. For dramatic films in the Hollywood tracks had. I didn’t know if it was a example, Australian editors, like style they don’t succeed, though mixing problem or not, and Peter American ones, generally determine Hollywood wasn’t, until recently, Fenton of United Sound expressed the pace of a film by the number of able to make films that involved the opinion that because he works frames left before the action starts. true emotions. We all remember on a system that ensures running on A lot of French directors, however, what they were like in the 50s . . . close to 100 per cent modulation, and gets it on to the optical by hav­ govern the pace by the amount of ing the reference tone at the time left after the action is com­ I think you are being a bit tough start of their mix, they could be at pleted . . . on the editor and understating his in­ peak mod much more than a nor­ fluence on a film’s style. Some mal mixing set-up could be. They You are talking more about film editors, Max Lemon for example, related their test signal to what was appreciation than editing and talk­ choose the take they prefer even if happening on the optical camera. ing styles of various directors. Cer­ tainly the Americans tend to cut they know the director prefers But I heard some tracks that United transferred under their own very tightly, especially if they’re another. . . control and they still didn’t have the doing a d ram a tic film . The Europeans, and I think this is I think it is the editor’s job to put punch of American or British because they are trying to make a in what take he thinks is best. I tracks. I wonder if the chemical different style of film, tend to let mean, he wouldn’t be contributing Continued on P. 59 things hang on a lot more. A lot of much if he did exactly what the Cinema Papers, June-July — 57

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PRODUCTION REPORT

Les Luxford

Continued from P. 57 control in our laboratories is carefully looked at, both in the processing of the sound negative and the printing.

What about the new Westrex system at APA Leisure Time?

I know that Fred Schepisi’s soundtrack was done there and I think he was quite happy with it. I hope it works for us. They are the only set-up that can accept 3-track mixes. They don’t have to go through that extra generation and that is obviously a great help.

Are you employing any optical effects in the film?

Well, we wanted some — how would you describe them — “zapped-out” opticals. The only one to talk to regarding opticals is Larry Wyner of Wyner Opticals.

He goes back to the early Coke commercials and the funny opticals that made those ads work. We had Larry come in and look at the scenes we wanted to use opticals in.

We discussed lots of ideas and he came up with some others and, Finally, we did some tests off the work-print. They were very en­ couraging and formed the basis for the final opticals. They are syn­ chronized, delayed, multiple ex­ posures.

In one instance, we have got seven or eight images each appear­ ing a few frames out of sync with the other. It is a little like what you can do on video when you use the camera as a monitor, but by doing it on Film you have much more con­ trol. If you do it on video each s u c c e s s iv e im a g e g e ts a degradation, whereas on Film it’s simply a matter of printing the negative over and over again. You can get whatever quality you want.

Have you done many tests off your work-print?

We did quite a few tests for the Wizard’s concert because we didn’t know how they would work.

Australian labs are notorious for not being able to do fades to black.

They invariably fade down in lumps and then sort of kick out. ..

That’s right. We wanted to do the title sequence on the CRI, but some of the things that Larry came up with can’t be done on the CRI because of the nature of them and because of the problems associated with CRTs. A CRI is very difficult to put titles on to. Your conven­ tional white dot off a black shadow is very easy when working interpos/interneg — it is simply a matter of running a matte with the interpos and then burning it on to the interneg. On a CRI, however, it involves actually burning in a matte for the dropshadow or Outline, and

you get all sorts of odd effects: the Ross Wilson black dropshadow comes back into Continued from P. 56 the white titles instead of ending neatly; white titles go different What were the major problems in colours; and so on. No one I know doing the music for the Wizard’s of likes to do opticals on CRI. They climactic performance? Apparlike to if they can get a good result antly, the actors on stage aren’t the but they don’t like the way of actual musicians . . . getting it — this is optical people I’m talking about. We are going to R ight, they ju st mimed it insist on doing our titles on CRI through. The scene was Filmed at and on getting a good end result as the Myer Music Bowl in-between well. I don’t know how many times acts of an AC/DC concert. There we will have to re-do them. must have been eight thousand kids You also have to use a wet-gate there and it was really packed. with CRI because with a conven­ Somehow, the crew managed to get tional optical system you can get on between acts and Film the ex­ dirt and dust printing through. So, I cerpt. think the titles will be done by I had put together the Wizard Colorfilm as they, and Atlab, have track previously and it was just the only 35mm wet-gate printers in piped very loudly through the Australia at the moment. gigantic P.A. into the audience.

The kids were all chatted up before­ Are you working with an hand and they vibed up to each assistant? other and to the tracks. They got lots of footage of kids clapping and Yes. We are cu ttin g on a so on, plus all the signs they’d given Movieola and there is no way I the kids to hold up. It was just like could work on a Movieola without a real pop show. one.

Was that number written Does that mean you prefer to specifically? work on a flatbed?

No. The song that Chris actually Yes. Movieolas in their upright wanted to use was Wild Thing — form are antiquated pieces of real cretin rock, with really basic equipment, which, personally, I feel lyrics: “Well babe, I think I love should be done away with. you.’’ It is just basic chords that anybody could play and that’s why Was it then a question of cost or it was so big. But there were flatbed availability? problems in that the people who owned the publishing rights wanted Both. It is very hard to hire an exorbitant amount for the screen anything other than a Movieola in rights, even though they were told Australia. Steenbecks are quicker that Australian Films don’t work on and much more sophisticated, multi-million dollar budgets. th o u g h w ith an a s s is ta n t, However, they wouldn’t back off Movieolas can be very quick. We and there was a lot of pissing probably couldn’t have cut Oz any around. It worked out for the best quicker on a Steenbeck, but we in the end because there was a song wouldn’t have had so many broken I had known for a long time by an sprockets and scratched frames.

Australian group of the mid-1960s — the Missing Links — which was Are you personally going to be just as basic. It was even better because it was an Australian com­ cutting the tracks? p o sitio n and we th o u g h t it Yes. We will probably be preferable to use only Australian splitting the dialogue into four orN music.

The lyrics were really basic: “ I Five tracks — separate characters into separate tracks — and break­ ing down the effects. Of course, we’ll have to add more effects and there will be two or three music tracks. I guess we could have 10 or 11 tracks on some reels, but others there might only be two or three. D ire c to r........ ................................... Chris Lofven

need your loving little girl, you’re driving me insane. When I kiss your lips, you’re driving me insane.” The guitars only play two chords and it worked out really well.

And you managed to get the rights?

Yes, really cheap — much cheaper than Wild Thing, that’s for sure.

What were the Americans asking?

They were fucking around for so long that we never got a Final price.

With this Australian song, I think the guy made more out of the screen rights than he did from record sales. It was not exactly a big hit, though it has always been one of my personal favourites.

What happened to the Missing Links?

All the guys kicked on in their own way. They were actually the first Australian group to get into that wild, feed-back kind of music which started off with Jimmie Hendrix.They have their own special place in Australian history.

Apparently, you’re mixing the album in the US . . .

The main reason I’m going over to the US in a couple of weeks is to do the next Skyhooks album.

Consequently, I thought I’d take the opportunity to mix the music over there.

I’ve got control of the music as far as recordings go, so I will be more or less making the decisions as to what is released as a single — in conjunction with the opinions of other people, of course.

Is it unusual to have this degree of control yourself?

Yes. It is certainly not usual for a writer to be able to dictate what can come out on record. I made my way up through the ranks and made a good go of it, so I’m in that for­ tunate position now. ★

CREDITS

Have you any idea where you will mix?

At United Sound, of course. It’s the only mixing set-up in the country that has the experience.

Will you be returning to commer­ cials on finishing “Oz”?

No. I so hated editing commer­ cials that I have given it up — I direct them now. I’d like to do more feature work and am thinking about getting some of my own things going. ★

C lap per/L oad er............................................... LouBrown Distributor ........................................................ BEF Gaffer ?.............................................................Mike Ewen P ro du cers......................................................ChrisLofven, Continuity ..............................................Jan Tyrell Lyne Helms Sound Re-recordist ...................... Peter Fenton Associate Producer ........................Jane Scott Second Unit Photography .. .Vincent Monton Production Company . . . .Count Features Inc. Assistant Art Director .................Ivana Perkins Production Manager ...................... Lyne Helms Key Grip ............................................ Noel Mudie Assistant D ire c to r......................................WaiterBoston Stunt C o-ordin ato r............ Graham Matherick S cre e n p la y ...................................... Chris Lofven Choreography .................................. Lyne Helms Photography..................................... Dan Burstall Still Photography .............................Susy Wood M u s ic ...............................................................RossWilson Hairdresser.........................................................IanMorrey E d ito r..................................................Les Luxford Best B o y ..........................................................PaulHolford Art Director................................Robbie Perkins Make-up .......................................... Joan Cooley Production S ecreta rie s.......... Julie Hocking, C aterers.................... Anna and Mary Catering Jenny Morris R u n n er.................................. Mikolaj Luhowskij Costumes ...................................... Paul Harrison Cast: Joy Dunstan, Graham Matters, Bruce Wardrobe .................................. Judith Soloman Spence, Michael Carmen, Garry Waddell.

Sound R ecordist........................... Danny Dyson Synopsis: A rock and roll road movie.

Special Photographic Effects . . . Larry Wyner B u d g e t............................... $150,000 Camera A ssistan t...........................................IvanHexter Length ......................................................90 mins Assistant E ditors....................... Peter Burgess, Colour P ro c e s s ...................................... Eastman Jim Conway Progress ..................................................... Editing Boom O p e ra to r...................... Chris Goldsmith

Cinema Papers, June-July — 59

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PRODUCTION SURVEY E d ito r........................ Edward McQueen Mason M u s ic ............................................ Tommy Tycho DON’S PARTY Art D irector.......................................... Les Binns Photography.............................................. RichardWallace D ire c to r.........................................................BruceBeresford Production Co-Ordinator ..........Christine Suli E d ito r................ ......................................Rod Hay 35mm PRE-PRODUCTION P ro d u c e r......................................... Philip Adams Production A dm inistrator............

Robert Kirby Production S ecretary.................... Cara Fames S cre e n p la y ............................ David Williamson Unit M a n a g e r.................................................

John Chase Costumes .......................................... Carol Berry Associate Producer ...................David Burrows Cast: Susannah York, John Waters, John Sound R ecordist...................... Ken Hammond Production S ecretary..........Bronwyn Brostoff Castle, Trevor Howard, Noel Ferrier, Martin Mixer ...................................................... Phil Judd Director of Photography............Don McAlpine Harris, Abigail, Gerard Kennedy, George Sound Editor ........................................ Rod Hay BAD FRUIT Camera O p e ra to r......................................... GaleTattersall Mallaby, Charles Tingwell, .

Gus Mercuric, Assistant D irecto rs...................................... Chris Maudson, Focus P u lle r...................................... Peter Moss Director .............................................Keith Salvat Bruce Spence, Sean Scully, Serge Lazareff, Michael Carlton C lap per/L oad er............................................DavidBrostoff Distributor.........................................................BEF Dennis Miller, Maurie Fields, Fabian Muir, Camera O p e ra to r......................................... RossNichols Sound R ecordist................................Des Bone Production C o m p a n y................Orchard Films John Frawley, Bill Hunter, John Cobley, Leon Focus P u lle r........................................ David Burr Assistant Sound R ecordist........Graham Irwin P ro d u c e r...................................... David Hannay Cissek, Sandra Gore, Peter Aanensen, Vicki Boom O p e ra to r............................................ DavidCasper 1st Assistant Director ..........Mike Martorana Executive Producer ..B rian Trenchard-Smith Bray, David Phillips, Ingrid Mason, Martin C lap per/L oad er............................................DavidBrostoff 2nd Assistant D irector..............Tovio Lember S c re e n p la y ...................................Michael Cove P h e la n , C a r o le S k in n e r , A r n a -M a r ia G a ffe r................................................................ AlanWalker Continuity ......................................... Moya Iceton Cast: Not yet finalized.

Winchester, Betty Bobbitt, John Smythe.

Continuity ................................... Teresa O'Leary G a ffe r.................................................... Alan Martin Synopsis: The life and times of the people of B u d g e t..................................................... $750,000 Second Unit Photography ........ Ross Nichols Key Grip ...........................................David Petley Sydney in the early 1950s.

Length ........................................................

Feature Set Decorator ...................................... Ray Frost Assistant Grip ..............................Neil Matthews B u d g e t......................................................$350,000 Colour L a b ............................................. Colorfilm Grip ............................................Graeme Mardell Assistant Electrics ........-.......... Simon Perton Length ...................................................... 110 min Progress ..................................................... Editing Second Unit D irecto r........ David Waddington 3rd G rip /R u n n e r.............................. Linda Blagg Colour P ro c e s s ...................................... Eastman Stunt C o-O rdinator..................Larry McGarry Wardrobe ........................................Anna Senior Progress ...................................... Pre-Production Assistant E d ito r........................Lochlin Duncan Make-up and Hair ...........................Judy Lovell OZ Still Photography ................................ Jeff Neild E d ito r.................................................................. BillAnderson P ro p s ................................................................. NeilMatthews Assistant E d ito r........................ Andrew Stewart See Production-Report, pages 51-59 Production A cco un tan t................ Clare Priest LASSETER Stills Photography .................Michael Giddens H airdresser.............................. Cheryl Cowdroy Casting Director .......................... Alison Barrett STORM BOY (working title) Best B o y ..............................George Harrington Standby P ro ps..................................Robert Hill P ro d u cer..........................................................Matt Carroll P ro d u c e r............................................ Russ Karel Make-up .....................................Josie Knowland C ast: John H argreaves, Jeanie Drynan, D ire c to r........................................................ HenriSafran Production C om pany.......... Triangle Features R u n n er.......................................... Mike Atkinson Graeme Blundell, Veronica Lang, Ray Barrett, Assoc. P ro d u c e r...............................Jane Scott S c re e n p la y ...................................... Sonia Borg, Cast: Brett Maxworthy, Sean Kramer, Spike Pat Bishop, Graham Kennedy, Kit Taylor, Location M anag er..............Beverley Davidson Howard Griffiths Milligan, Lionel Long, Robert Quilter, Shirley Candy Raymond, Harold Hopkins, Claire Production S ecretary..................Barbara Ring Synopsis: An adventure story, set in 1930, all Binney.

Cameron, Jack Allen, Mike Preston, Jackie Assistant D irecto r........................Ian Goddard about an expediton which Lasseter arranged to Synopsis: Adapted from David Williamson's Rees, Rob Steele, Danny Adcock, Judy Con2nd Assist. D ire c to r....................Ian Jamieson 1ind his fabulous reef of gold. A story of man’s play of the same name. nelli, Al Thomas.

Continuity ......................................... Moya Iceton quest into the interior — the interior of B u d g e t..................................................... $300,000 Synopsis: Family adventure story set in Aus­ Dir. of P hotography.................. Geoff Burton Australia, and the interior of himself. tralia in the 1800s which tells of the travels and Length ........................................................ Feature Camera Operator ........................ Ross Nicholls B u d g e t........................ ............................$400,000 adventure of a 12 year-old boy shipwrecked Colour Process ...................................... Eastman Focus Puller/Camera Length ............................ ..........................Feature off the Australian coast.

Progress ..................................................... Editing Operator ............................................David Burr Progress ................................... Pre-production.

B u d g e t..................................................... $224,000 C lap per/L oad er.............................................ErikaAddis Length ........................................................93 min Sound R ecordist...................... Ken Hammond HARNESS FEVER Camera .................................................... Panaflex Boom O p e ra to r.................. Julian McSweeney THE PICTURE SHOW MAN Colour P ro c e s s ...................................... Eastman D ire c to r............................................Don Chaffey Production Designer .............. David Copping D ire c to r............................................ John Power Progress ................................... Awaiting release Production C om pany....................Walt Disney B uyer/D resser................................Neil Angwln Production Company . . . Limelight Production P ro d u cer.............................. Jerome Courtland' Stand-by Props M a ster................... Ken James P ro d u cer............................................ Joan Long Managed in Australia Construction M a n ag er............... Herbert Pinter FANTASM Production Manager ................Basil Appleby b y .................................. Samson Productions M a ke-u p /H a ir............................................... HelenDyson D ire c to r...................................................... RichardBruce Screenplay ........................................ Joan Long Associate Producer .................. Hugh Attwooll Wardrobe ...................................Jennifer Zadow D istributor...............................................

Filmways Photography.................. Geoffrey Burton ASC Production Manager ....................Sue Milliken Grip .............. ................................... Phil Warner Production Company . .TLN Film Productions Art D irector..................................Owen Williams Production C o-ordinator................ Pom Oliver G rip /D rlv e r....................................Michael White P ro d u cer.............................. Antony I. Ginnane Costumes ................................ Judith Dorsman Assistant D irecto rs..................................... :Mark Edgerton, G a ffe r................................................... Tony Tegg Executive Producers ...................... Leon Gorr, Synopsis: Com edy-drama about a travelling Steve Knapman Best B o y ......................................Allan Dunstan Ted Mulder picture showman in the NSW back country. Screenplay ............................................. Ed Jurist Assistant Lighting S cre e n p la y .................................... Ross Dimsey Late 1920s.

Based on the N o v e l..................... The Boyds-ot Technician .................................. Keith Johnson (from an idea by Antony I. Ginnane) B u d g e t......................................................$524,000 Black River 3rd Assist. Director ....................... Ian Allen Photography.............................................. VincentMonton Length ........................................................ Feature Photography.................................. Geoff Burton 3rd G r ip ............................................Simon Lewis Assistant Camera (Los Angeles) . Stuart Dell Colour P ro c e s s ...................................... Eastman 2nd Unit Photography.............. Bill Grimmond Technical A d v is e r..........................Grant Page Sound (L .A .).................................. Neil Rozenski Progress ............................ Shooting Sept.-Oct. Camera O p e ra to r...............................John Seal S tills ..............................................David Kynoch Gaffer (L .A .)................................. Frank Sllveira Lighting ............................................... Tony Tegg Publicity............................................Peter Welch Unit Manager (L .A .).................... Tom Hammel Colour P ro c e s s ...................................... Eastman Prod. Accountant ................ ..........Bill Altmann Grip/Stills (L.A.) .......................... Ron Batsdorf Stills Photographers................ John Brothers, R u n n er..............................................Scott Hicks Second Grip (L .A .)...................... John Murphy ' GeoffNeild E d ito r..............................................Turney-Smlth Assistant to Director (L .A .)___Cookie Knapp 35 mm IN PRODUCTION Set Designer ..............................David Copping Editor A ssistant..............................Viano Jaksa Make-up (L.A.) ........................ Debbie Maxwell Continuity ....................................Lyn McEncrow Dubbing Editor ..............................Bob Cogger Production Secretary (L .A .)..........Chris Knapp Make-up .................................. Patricia Cunlisse C atering............ ...............................Anna Baker Assistant Camera (Australia) .. Robert Powell Chief G r ip s .............................. Graeme Mardell, Mary Baker Sound (A ust.)..................................... Paul Clark Ross Erickson Pelican Trainer ........................... Gordon Noble Gaffer (A u s t.).......... .................... Tony Holtham BREAK OF DAY Sound Recordist ........................Don Connolly Unit Publicist ..................................

Jeni Wagner Grip (A ust.)................................................ RichardFrancis D ire c to r.......................................... Ken Hannam Boom O p e ra to r...................... Roland McManls Cast: Greg Rowe, Peter Cummins, David Stills (Aust.) ...................................... Earl Mante Distributor..........................

BEF Animal T ra in e r.................................................JimPrine Gulpilil, HedleyCullen, Graham Dow, EricMake-up (Aust.) ............................... Nan Dunne P ro d u c e r............................................................PatLovell Horsem aster.................................... Heath Harris Mack, Richard Lane, Jack Harris, Paul Smith, Production Secretary (Aust.) .Marlane Pearce Associate Producers .......................Cliff Green, Wardrobe Designer .................. Judy Dorsman Mike Caufield, Tony Allison, Daphne Grey.

E d ito r............................................Ford Footpole Geoff Burton Cast: Robert Betties, Tom Farley, Andrew Progress ...............................................

Shooting Additional Sound Effects ..........John Phillips, Production Company . Artis Film Productions McFarlane, Mary Ward, Julie Anne Nubold.

Phil Sterling Production Manager ....................... Pom Oliver Synopsis: Story of harness racing In 1911.

Mixing ............................................Bob Gardiner S c re e n p la y ............ ............................. Cliff Green Casting...................................

Sandra McKenzie O p tica ls...........................................................Larry Wyner Photography...............................................RussellBoyd Production A ccountants............Fred Harding, Cast: Dee Dee Levitt, M aria Arnold, Bill M u s ic .......................................... George Dreyfus Treifha Ghent Margold, Gretchen Gayle, Rene Bond, Al E d ito r................................................................ Max Lemon 35mm AWAITING RELEASE Gauge ........................................................35 mm Williams, Con Covert, M ara Lutra, Uschi Production Designer ................... Wendy Dixon Progress .....................................................

Editing Dlgart, Marla Welton, John Holmes, Mary Cast: Sara Kestelman, Andrew McFarlane, Gavin, Gene Allen Poe, Robert Savage, Kirby John Hargreaves, Drew Forsythe, David Hall, Shayne, Sue Doloria, Al Ward, Clement Cam eron, Judy Morris, Gerda Nicholson, BARNEY St. George, Serena.

MRS ELIZA FRASER Ingrid Mason, Arthur Dignam, Sandy Gore, D ire c to r................................David Waddington S y n o p s is : An A u s tra lia n p s y c h ia tr is t Jude Kuring, Wyn Roberts.

Director ............................................Tim Burstall Distributor............................Columbia Pictures researches the ten most common female fan­ Synopsis: A love story set in a Victorian Distributor.............................................Roadshow Production C om pany..........D. S. Waddington tasies.

Production C om pany............................Hexagon country town in 1920. It begins in 1915 with the Productions P/L B u d g e t........................................................$70,000 P ro d u cer......................................... Tim Burstall Australian Forces in Gallipoli.

P ro du cers............................ David Waddington, Length ........................................................ 90 min B u d g e t......................................................$617,000 Associate Producer .................... Alan Finney John Williams Gange ........................................................ 35 mm Length .........................................................Feature Production Manager .................. Michael Lake Executive Producer .................. Michael Tarant (blow-up from 16 mm) Colour P ro c e s s ...................................... Eastman M u s ic ............................................................. BruceSmeaton Production Manager ..........................Les White Colour P ro c e s s .................................. Metrocolor Progress ......................................................Editing Photography................................................. RobinCopping S creen p lay.....................................................ColinDrake Progress ................................... Awaiting release

BH Above: Maria Welton and that actor "of lengthy credentials”, John Holmes. Richard Bruce’s Fantasm.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 61

P R O D U C TIO N S U R VE Y

PRODUCTION SURVEY Boom O p e ra to r.............................. Joe S pinelli TH E FO U R TH W ISH , CIRCUS Sound R e c o rd is t...................... Ken H am m ond Key Grip ................................ Graeme Mardell Boom O p e ra to r.......................... David C ooper D ire c to r........................................... David Greig D irector .......................................... Don Chaffey Grip .......................................... Noel McDonald G a ffe r......................................

Brian Bansgrove P ro d u c e r.........................................

David Greig Executive Producer ...................... Jill C. Robb G a ffe r...................................... Brian Bansgrove Sound R e-recordist .................... Peter Fenton Photography............................ Wolfgang Krelss P ro d u c e r......................................................... John M orris Best B o y ...................................... Paul G antner Best B o y ........................................ Paul Gantner Sound .............................................. Daryl Evans Associate P roducer .........................Matt Carrol Standby P ro p s ............................ Robert Jones M ake-up ........................................

Liz M ltchie E d ito r............................................... David Greig Production Manager ...................... Matt Carrol C arpenter .................................... David M unro Asst.

E le c tro n ic s .......................... tan P lum m er Synopsis: Life on the road with the Swiss Cir­ Location M a n a g e r..............Beverley Davidson H a ird re s s e r.............................. W illiam Kenrick cus Royale in NSW. Cast: A rthur Dignam, Rufus Collins, Nell 1st A ssistant D irector .............. Mark Egerton E le c tric ia n s ................................ Ian Plummer, Colour Process .................................... Eastman C am pbell, A ndrew Sharp, Kate Fitzpatrick.

2nd A ssistant D ire c to r..........Steve Knapman Simon Purtin Length ...................................................... 50 mins Synopsis: Not available.

3rd Assistant D ir e c to r ..................Ron Sanders W r a n g le r ............................................ Ken Grant Progress ................................................. Editing B u d g e t....................................................$350,000 P h o to g ra p h y ................................... Geoff Burton Assistant W ra n g le rs ...................... Vicki Grant, Length .................................................. 100 mins.

Camera O p e r a to r .................. Gayle Tattersall Ruth Beazley G auge’ ........................................................ 35 mm F o c u s ........................................ John Illingw orth Location Liaison .......................... Neville Lowe CITY BLUES C olour P ro c e s s ................................... Eastman Stills P h o to g ra p h e r.................... David Kynoch Negative Matching .............. M argaret Cardin Progress ........................................ Release print A rt D ire c to r...................................David Copping D ire c to r................................................. Lou Brown Cast: Dennis Hopper, Jack Thom pson, David B u y e r ........................................... Graham W alter P ro d u cer............................................... Lou Brown G ulpilil, Frank Thring, Michael Pate, Wallas Dresser .............................................. Ken James Screenplay .................................... .. Lou Brown Eaton, Bill Hunter, John Hargreaves, M artin C onstruction M a n a g e r............................H erbert Paiter Photography......................................... Lou Brown Harris, Robin Ramsay, Graeme Blundell.

For details of the follow ing 35mm film s see Production S e c re ta ry ........................ Am y Pulle E d ito r..................................................... Lou Brown Synopsis:Based on the book M o r g a n by the previous issue: Production A c c o u n ta n t............ Fulvio Filipponi Sound R eco rd ist............................ Danny Dyson M argaret Carnegie.

The Big Fellow M u s ic ................................................Tristan Cary Music Composed .......................... Alan Pearce B u d g e t......................................................$450,000 Phar Lap Lives P u b lic ity ............................................Peter Welsh Grip ................................................ Noel Moodie Length ........................................................ Feature The Devil's Playground E d it o r ...................................... G. Turnery-S m ith Cast: Alan Pearce C olour P ro c e s s .........................

Eastman A ssistant E d ito r ........................................... Viano Jaska Synopsis: Surrealist hard-edge Blues.

Progress ................................ Awaiting Release D ubbing E ditor ........................ Lindsay Frazer T itles.................................................Master Touch Dubbing A ssistant ...................... Craig Lahuff Progress .................................. Filming mid-May 16mm PRODUCTION SURVEY C ontinuity .............................. C aroline Stanton N U T S , BO LTS AND M ake-up .......................................... Helen Dyson W ardrobe A s s is ta n t................................. M andy Smith B E D R O O M S P R IN G S CONFIRMATION Assistant M ake-up ........................Lloyd James D ire c to r.......... ................................Paul Bugden D ir e c to r ............................................ Gary Young G rip .................................................. Phil W arner ABORIGINAL EDUCATION P ro d u c e r.......................................... David Perry P roduction C om pany . . . G arron International G r ip /D r iv e r .................................. Michael White S c re e n p la y ......................................Paul Bugden D ir e c to r ........................................................... John Sullivan P ro d u c e r.......................................... Gary Young Sound R e c o rd is t............................ Barry Brown Photography.................................... David Perry P ro d u c e r.............................. Ross R. Cam pbell S creenplay . . . , .............................Gary Young C la p p e r ...................................... Davfd Foreman Editing .................................. Ronda MacGregor P roduction C o m p a n y ...............Avec Film Unit G a ffe r...............................................................Tony TeggP roduction M anager ..............A drian Penning Production Assistant .................... Luda Apinys S c re e n p la y ..................................................... John Sullivan, Boom O p e ra to r.............................................. Bob AllenD irector of Photography . . . . Malcolm Pollard Sound R eco rd ist................................. Chris Doig G rabriella Batchelor C ontinuity ..............................Pamela Jackm an Third E le c tric s .......................................... Errika A ddis Make-up ..............................................Rob Dallas P h o to g ra p h y .............................. Rob M cC ubbin Sound R e c o rd is t................................ John True Best B o y ........................................ Allan Dunstan M u s ic ................................................Bob Hughes E d ito r ............................................................Robert Francis Lighting ...........................................John Lennon C a rp e n te r/L a b o re r.....................................P hillip S urry Special A rtw o rk...................... Kay Whitehead Tracks ............................................ David Hughes E d ito r s ............................................................. Gary Young Location H a ird re s s e r.......... M addy Jam ieson C aterin g........................................ Wendy Hamer Sound R ecordist ...........................David Hughes Malcolm Pollard Cast: John Meillon, Robert Betties, Robyn Cast. Bob Hughes, Cheryl Sciro, David Calcott, Synopsis: Produced in conjunction with the Sound R e m ix ................................................ A tlab Sound Nevin, Brian Anderson, Michael Craig, Julie Luda Apinys, Alleen Corpus, Richard Hill, D epartm ent of A boriginal A ffairs and with the T itle s ............................................................... Atlab, Dawson, Anne Haddy, Ron H addrick, Julie Wayne Van Heekeren. assistance of the A boriginal com m unity in Vic­ Eric Porter P roductions Ham ilton, M oishe Smith.

Synopsis: A fantasy within a memory. The con­ toria, this film plans to highlight the many new Cast: Steve Michaels, Val Moore, Lyn S am p­ Synopsis: A film exploring the rare nature of a firmation day of a boy Is a memory of the event and innovatory educational program s un der­ son, C arol Lane, B arb ara Jackso n, G ary father/son relationship. Initially refusing to ana xne rantasy is sparked off the the taken by and fo r A borigines in rural and urban Young. . accept the inevitability of his son’s death significance of that day. areas.

Synopsis: A bout “ it” and how to get “ it” if you through leukem ia, the father defies authority B u d g e t........................................................... $6000 P ro c e s s .................................................. Eastman do n’t get sprung getting “ it” . A ribald, raunchy and convention in order to make his son’s life . Colour P ro c e s s ............................Eastman 7247 Length ...................................................... 20 mins rom p about the oldest subject — rated R. as full as possible. Eventually, he discovers the Length ....................................................... 25 mins Progress ................................................

Shooting C olour Process ........................................Eastman depth of his own courage and determ ination Progress ................................ Awaiting Release Laboratory ................................................... Atlab. and is “ re b o rn ” a man.

B u d g e t........................................................$65,000 B u d g e t.................................................... $240,000 BILL & CO. Length ................

75mins Length .................................................... Feature D ir e c to r .............................................. Phil Wallis ISLANDS IN THE STREAM Progress ...............................................In Release P ro d u c e r....................................................... LouBrown Production C om pany....... Connaught with the assistance of B.E.F. Productions Inc. M A D DOG Executive Producer ..................... Phil Wallis Associate Producer ........................ Ken Wales D ir e c to r .......................................... P hilippe Mora SUMMER OF SECRETS Screenplay ...................................... Lou Brown Second Underwater P ro d u c e r.................................. Jerem y Thomas (THE SECRET OF PARADISE BEACH) P h o to g ra p h y ..................................................... LouBrown C a m e r a ..................................... John Harding Associate P roducer . . . . . . . Richard Brennan Sound R e c o rd is t.....................-. Danny Dyson 35mm Blow-up ..................................... Colorfilm Production S u p e rv is o r............................. PeterBeilby Grip ............................................... Noel Moodie D ir e c to r .......................................... Jim Sharm an Australian sequences ............... Fathom Films Assistant D ir e c to r ........................ M ichael Lake D is trib u tio n .................................................... BEF Synopsis: A com edy (possibly a half-hour synop sis: S creen ad ap tatio n of Ernest 2nd A ssistant D ire c to r.......... Chris M audson te le v is io n e p is o d e ) s h o w in g th e o n e P roduction C o m p a n y ................ Secret Picture Hemingway’s last novel.

3rd A ssistant D ir e c to r ................ W illiam Mora upm anship in a contem porary genre.

P roductions Budget............................................U.S. $8 million Screenplay .................................. P hilippe Mora P roducer ...................... Michael Thornhill Progress ............................. Final editing and Length .................................................... 30 mins.

P h o to g ra p h y ....................................................M ike Molloy Production M anager ............... Ross Matthews 16mm to 35mm blow-ups Process ............................................ 7247, 7242 C am era O p e r a to r .......................... John Seale Production C o -o rd in a to r..........Jenny W oods Progress ...................................... Shooting July P roduction C o -o rd in a to r.............Jenny W oods 1st A ssistant D irector ................ Errol Sullivan Focus P u lle r ............................................... PeterRogers 2nd A ssistant D ire c to r............... Mark Turnbull JEREMY AND TEAPOT Stills P h o to g ra p h e r.................... Angus Forbes 3rd A ssistant D ir e c to r ................Keith Keygate D ire c to r................................................ Briann A CALENDER OF DREAMINGS A rt D ire c to r.................................... Bob Hilditch Screenplay ....................................:.J o h n Aitken Associate Producers .................. John Darling, P roperty Buyer .............................. Barry A dler P h o to g ra p h y ...............................................RussellBoydD ir e c to r .......................................................... Geoff Bardon Digby Stewart, P ro d u c e r........................................................Geoff Bardon Costum e D esigner .................. Bruce Finlayson W ardrobe D e s ig n e r.......... Kristen Fredriksen Dr M. Simpson Executive P roducer ...................Jam es Bardon C onstruction M a n a g e r............ Danny Burnett W ardrobe M a s te r .......................................Bruce Finlayson Photography........................

Matthew Flanagan, S c re e n p la y ....................................................Geoff Bardon P roduction S e c re ta ry ............ Penelope Wells Focus P u lle r .................................................. Peter Moss Cy Lawson P h o to g ra p h y .................................................. Peter James, P roduction A ccountant . . . . G eoffrey Pollock A rt D ire c to r..................................................... Jane Norris M u s ic .......................................... Stevie Dunstan M u s ic ............................................ Patrick Flynn Jack Doyle Props B u y e r .................................................. Lissa Coote E d ito r.......................................................... Michael E d ito r .............................................. P hillip Noyce E d ito r ............................................................ John Scott Standby P ro p s ............................................ M onte Fieguth Sound ...................... ....................Kevin Kearney M u s ic ...........................................Robert M urphy Assistant E d ito r ....................... Peter W hitm ore C onstruction M a n a g e r...................................RayBrocus Make-up ............................................. Irene Walls N a rr a to r.................................................. John Bell S upervising Dubbing E d ito r. . . . Bob Cogger M u s ic ............................................Cam eron Allen Wardrobe ..........................................

Beryl, Titles ...........................................John Falkem rire A ssistant D ubbing E ditor . . . . A ndre Fleuren E d it o r ............................................... Sara Bennett Chrlssie Olliver Synopsis: The relationship between A boriginal C ontinuity ...................................... G ilda Barachi A ssistant E d ito r ........................................... Helen Brown Assistant ........................................

David Bracks artists of Central A ustralia and the landscape.

M ake-up ............................................ Liz Michie D ubbing E ditor ............ ......................Greg Bell Still Photography . . . Kevin Kearney (colour), B u d g e t........................................................ $20,000 Assistant W a r d r o b e ............ W endy Robinson C ontinuity ...................................... G ilda Barachi Peter Carrette (b/w) Length ........................................................ 35 min 2nd M a k e - u p .............................................. Trish Cunliffe C horeography ............................. C ristine Koltai C a te re r................................................ Peter Drury C olour P ro c e s s ................................ Ektachrom e S tu n ts ........................................................... Grant Page Design C onsultants .......... Michael Ramsden, Cast: Patrick Thompson, Brian Syron, Jack Progress .................................. Aw aiting release C lapper L o a d e r...................... Robert M arden S tuart M cDonald Thompson, Bunkie, Leona King, Ann McCann, 2nd Unit Cam eram an .................... Ron H orner R e s e a rc h .............. : ....................Sally C am pbell Beverly.

Sound R ecordist ..................... Ken Hamm ond G rip ............................................ G eorgie Dryden Synopsis: The film is about a boy who creates M ixer ................................................ Peter Fenton Asst. G rip ..........................................Phil W arner a friend and takes him to the worlds of In­ visibility, Colours and Sounds.

62 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Above: The advertisem ent fo r Jim S harm an’s Summer of Secrets from the A ustralian issue of Variety.

B u d g e t...........................................................$8000 Length ........................................................ 25 min Colour P ro c e s s .................................... Eastman Progress ........ ...........................Final Editing

LAST HOPE

10

Length ...................................................... mins Colour P ro c e s s ............................................ 7242 Progress .................................. Release

W. ANCHOR AND W. ANN KERR

D ire c to r................................................Lou Brown P ro d u cer............................................. Ron Brown S c re e n p la y ..........................................Lou Brown Photography ........................................ Lou Brown THE MAGIC COIN QUEEN E d ito r................................................... Ron Brown D ire c to r.......................................................... Peter Green Sound R eco rd ist............................... Ron Brown P ro d u c e r.............................. Ross R. Campbell Cast: Ruth Brown, Phill Brown, Chris Brown.

Production C om pany................ Avec Film Unit Synopsis: The product of the emancipation S c re e n p la y ....................................... Peter Green and frustration of women (Wendy) as directed Sound .......................................... David Hughes against men (Bill) as depicted in a fantasy Animation ......................................... Peter Green scene. The Elk remains her lover.

Assistant A nim ators........... Alexander Milsky, Length ...................................................... 10 mins Des Bunyon Laboratory .......................................................VFL Curriculum Adviser .................... Annette Park Colour P ro c e s s ............................................. 7254 Synopsis: An animated film for children in in­ Progress ......................................................Editing fant grades. The recognition of Australian coins and computation to the value of one dollar is treated in opera bouffe style, loosely based on Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

For details of the following 16mm films see Colour P ro c e s s .................................... Eastman the previous Issue: Length ...................................................... 10 mins Bio-Gas Progress .................................... Pre-production Black, Red, White

THE GREEN MACHINE D ire c to r.............................. ................T. Ohlsson Executive Producers .................... P. Johnson, P. Arnold Production C o m p a n ie s .................... Kingcroft, Film Australia Screenplay ........................................ T. Ohlsson Photography....................................... G. Furner, K. Lambert E d ito r.................................................... B. Stacey Sound R eco rd ist.................... D. McConnachie Camera A ssistan t............................................... J.Mounsey Assistant E d ito r...................................... L. Irwin Synopsis: Activities of the Australian Army.

Color Process ......................................Eastman Length .......................................................18 mins Progress .................................. Post-production

D ire c to r.....................................John Tsambazls P ro d u c e r...................................John Tsambazis Associate Producer ................ Frank Soldatos Photography-. . . . . . . . . . . C .. John Tsambazis Film Editor .......................................... Jim Haron Sound R eco rd ist...................... John O ’Connell Production Assistants ...................... Jim Wilis, Frank Zammit .

George Soldatos Facilities ...................... Supreme Films Pty Ltd Cast: Hellen Frith.

Synopsis: Old woman goes to church to pray INDIA for forgiveness. She Is confronted by God’s D ire c to rs .............................................................. C.Noonan, power through the object of prayer — mis­ interpretation of this confrontation leads the R. Kingsbury, D. Kingsland old woman into a state of horrific excitement.

P ro d u c e r.................................................. B. Moir B u d g e t.................................. ........................$2200 Bristow and the Black Marlin Associate P ro d u c e r............................ A. Ezard Length .................................................. 8 minutes The Buck’s Party NEW GAMES Colour P ro c e s s .................................... Eastman Production C om pany.................. Film Australia Constrasts Distributor...................................... Film Australia Progress .....................................

Inrelease.P ro d u cer.............................. Ross R. Campbell Crazy Movies Production C o-ordinator..............Ross Lukeis M u s ic ...................................... Ure Indian music The Devil’s Party S c re e n p la y .................................................. Maree Teychenne and disc.

LIFE DREAMS Highway One Photography.....................................................RobMcCubbin, Photography......................................................... j . Rhodes, D ire c to r............................................ David Perry It Was Only My Imagination John Sullivan, M. Edols Production C o m p a n y .................... Quest Films King of the Islands Frank Sheeram E d ito rs .................................................................. K.Grenville, S c re e n p la y ...... ................................David Perry Melanie and Me Editing ..........................................Robert Francis B. Moir, Original S to ry .................................................. DickBarry On the Bail Sound .......................................... David Hughes C. Noonan, Photography...................................................ChrisDoigTechnical A d v is e r............................................PatFarringdon Out of the Past D. Kingsland E d ito r.............................................................. FrankHeimans Surrender in Paradise Synopsis: Produced in conjunction with the Production Manager .................... D. Kingsland Production Assistant .....................Luda Apinys Untitled Department of Youth, Sport and Recreation.

Production C o-ordinator.................................. K.Grenville, Zizzem Zam Make-up ............................................ Rob Dallas These new gam es are Innovative, non­ M. Rubetzki S tills .....................................

Malcolm Ladd competitive and require no expense. But Sound Recordists.................................. E. Giddy, Cast: Elizabeth Mortison, David Calcott, Rob they do involve the whole community. This film ..

H. Spry Dallas. aims to foster quite new approaches in S yn o p s is: C o n tin u a tio n of “ O u r A slan Synopsis: A schoolgirl fed up with suburban recreational activities.

Neighbours" series.

FILM AUSTRALIA boredom takes refuge in fantasy. Trouble is, Colour P ro c e s s .................................... Eastman Colour P ro c e s s ....................................Eastman she has difficulty in finding reality again — but L e n g th ...................................................... 12 mins Length ............................................ 1 4 x 1 5 mins does she really need It? ' Progress .................................................... Editing Progress .................................................... Editing B u d g e t.......................................................... $6000 Colour P ro c e s s ...................................... Eastman7247 ABAKANOWICZ IN AUSTRALIA OPERA COMPANY L e n g th .................................................................. 25mins THE SINGER AND THE DANCER D ire c to r...................................................C. McGill P ro g re s s .................................. Shooting in June D ire c to r....................................... Gill Armstrong D ire c to r...................................................O. Howes P ro d u cer.................................................M. Otton P ro d u c e r..................................... Gill Armstrong P ro d u c e r............................................... M.'Otton Production C om pany.................. Film Australia Associate Producer ..................... R. Hannam Production Manager ...................Errol Sullivan Distributor...................................... Film Australia LISTEN TO THE LION Production Designer .............. Sue Armstrong S cre e n p la y ............................................C. Jones Photography........................................... K. Brown D ire c to r...........................................................HenriSafran S c re e n p la y .....................................John Pleffer, Distribution C o m p a n y ................ Film Australia E d ito r.................................................................... B.Woods P ro d u c e r................................................... Bob Hill Production C om pany................ Film Australia, Gill Armstrong Production C o-ordlnator.................................... I.Adtkins Production Manager .................... Ian Goddard Photography...................................Russell Boyd Australian Opera Sound R eco rd ist................................................ R.Simmons Photography.......................... Malcolm Richards Production Manager .......................... D. Parer Camera A ssistan t................ Malcolm Richards Mixer .............................................. j . Elllngworth Cam era A ssistan t......................................... Tony Galley Production C o-ordinator................... R. Bissell G a ffe r...............................................Mick Morris Camera A ssistan t...............................................L.Chittfck Art D irector...............................................Bob Hill Sound R eco rd ist........................................ Laurie Fitzgerald M u s ic ............................................. Leo Delibres Electricians............................................. B. Gaily, Grip ...................................................... Tony Hunt E d ito r........................................... Nick Beauman A. Walker Photography.................................. Kerry Brown Sound R eco rd ist............................... Bob Hayes M u s ic ........................................... Robert Murphy E d ito r....................................................Ian Walker S y n o p s i s : A s t u d y of M a g d a l e n a Make-up ................................... Anne Pospischill Music D irecto r........................James McCarthy G a ffe r.............................................. Mickey Morris Abakanowicz’s works in Australia.

C o n tin u ity.......... ..................................Jenny Day Sound R eco rd ist.............................................DonConnolly C o n tin u ity ............ .............................Moya Iceton Colour P ro c e s s ..................................... Eastman Production Assistants ______Peter Fitzgerald, G a ffe r................................................ Bruce Galley M ake-up/H airdresser.................................... RinaHofmanis Length ...................................................... 21 mins Cast: Joan Sutherland, Richard Bonynge, Greg Ricketson W ardrobe/Props A ssistant. . . Sue Armstrong Progress ............................ Post Production Cast: Ruth C racknell, Elizabeth Crosby, H u g u e tte T o u ra n g e a u , C liffo rd G ra n t, Stand-by Props B u y er............ Peter Clencross Russell Keith, Gerry Duggan, Jude Kuring, members of the Australian Opera.

Production S ecreta ry..................................Sonia Rothbury Julie Dawson.

ASIA BEHIND THE SMILE Synopsis: Behind the scenes look at an E d ito r........................................................... MervynLloyd Synopsis: Based on a short story by Alan ensemble opera company focussing on the Musicians ...................................... .... Sid Gould, D ire c to r................................................................ A.Nicholson Marshall. mounting pf Lakme.

Brian Evans, P ro d u cer.............................................................. D.Murray Colour P ro c e s s .................................... Eastman L e n g th ...................................................... 50 mins Albert Mueller Executive Producer ........................... J. Temple Length ...................................................... 50 mins Colour P ro c e s s ..................................... Eastman C aterin g........ ................. Alexandra Receptions Associate Producer ........................R. Hannam Progress .......................................... Final Editing Progress ................................................ Shooting Cast: Wyn Roberts, Barry Lovett, Syd Heylen, S cre e n p la y .......................................... J. Temple Maiva Drummond, Les Foxcroft, John Derum, Distribution Company ................ Film Australia Hon Hatcliff, Joseph Dicker, Stephen Warren, Production C om pany................ Film Australia, OUT THEY GO Paul O’Loughlan, Kevin Leslie.

TOWARDS A BALANCED VIEW ABC, B u d g e t........................................................ $35,000 University of Qld. Press D ire c to r................................................................ m .Edols D ire c to r........ ...................................Brian Bergln Length ...................................................... 60 mins Production Manager .......................... D. Parer P ro d u c e r...............................................................j . Read Executive Producer .................... Peter Dimond Laboratory ..............................................Colorfilm Photography........................................ D. Semler, S cre e n p la y .......................................................... m .Edols Production Company . . . .Boslsto Productions Stock ................................................................7247 A. Frazer Distribution C o m p a n y ................................ FiimAustralia Director of P hotography............. Brian Bosisto Progress ........................

Editing E d ito r...........................................................P. Vile Production C om pany................Film Australia Sound ................................................ Bob Allen Production Manager .......................... |. Adkins Sound R ecordist............................P. Lipscomb Synopsis: Shows the action being taken by the Mixer ............................................ J. Ellingworth Photography........................................................ m .Edols MY NAME’S MICK South Australian Government to rehabilitate Sound E d ito r ....................................A. Ohlsson E d ito r.................................................... M. Cohen quarry sites and develop new methods on pro­ Special Photographic Effects ........H. Fischer Sound R eco rd ist...................................j . Doring D ire c to r................................................ Lou Brown jected workings.

Cast: John Temple as Narrator plus the people Mixer Elllngworth P ro d u c e r.............................................. Lou Brown Length ..................................................17 minutes of eight Asian nations.

Sound E d ito r ............................................ e . Muir S c re e n p la y .......................................... Lou Brown Gauge .......................................................... 16mm Camera A ssistan t..................... p. Levy Synopsis: A TV series to foster the under­ Photography.......................................Erwle Clark Colour P ro c e s s .............................. Ektachrome Synopsis: An unusual study of the famous standing of Asian peoples, examining their Sound ............................................ Danny Dyson Sydney landmark “Paddy’s Market”. social and historical backgrounds.

Make-up ........................................ Joan Cooley Cast: Lou Brown Length ............................................ 6 x 50 mins Length ............................ ............................60 min Colour P ro c e s s .................................... Eastman Colour P ro c e s s ......................................Eastman Synopsis: The thoughts of a young man on the Progress ........................................... Final Editing eve of his prison entombment.

Progress ................................... Awaiting release

............................j.

Above Left: Elizabeth Mortison as the schoolgirl who takes refuge in fantasy. David Perry’s Life Dreams.

Above Right: Ruth Cracknell in The Singer and the Dancer, Gill Armstrong’s new film.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 63

S bBYICbS TOP FLOOR - 2 EDEN STREET,CROWS NEST, N.S.W. 2065

Fuli reflex viewing with Angenieux ultra-wide angle and zooms for surfacelevel and underwater shots; • Extensive library of stock-footage. e B arrier Reef charter boats organized.

• Catering fo r m otion picture and television industry.

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We Have a IW m . exiling foom (o r hVfe,. Ih includes <3 six- plafe HKS V iew er <£U2. s p lic e r a^d n e g w afcK i^r P a ^ ilit T ^ u ^ * . . kour. 9 - 5 . $5 weekends and nights on call ®

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Video Engineer Client C ontact & Production

P R O D U C TIO N S U R V E Y

PRODUCTION SURVEY SEEING RED FEELING BLUE

Production Approvals

D ire c to r.................................................... j . Oehr AUSTRALIAN FILM P ro d u c e r................................................ S. Baker Associate Producer ............................ A. Ezard COMMISSION Production C om pany...................Film Australia Distribution Company ................ Film Australia Photography...................................... j . Rhodes, L. Chittick Film Projects given financial support follow­ E d ito r..................................................... D. Stiven ing the November, 1975, and January and Production Manager .............. M. Damjanovic February, 1976 meetings of the Commission.

Production C o-ordinator.................. J. Pitman Script Develop m e n t/P re-P roduction Sound R ecordists.............................................. R.Simmons, Approvals K. Hammond John McCallum Productions Mixer ......................................................... G. Hart Project: Waratah Park Cast: Caroline Jay, Lesley Blackwood, Fila Fila, $5000 Robin Laurie, Ruth Maddison, Annie McKen­ zie.

Robin Dalton Associates Ltd. Synopsis: Social implications of fem ale Project: Carnivore physiology. $3000 Colour P ro c e s s .................................... Eastman Andrew Vial Length .............................................. ..

20 mins Progress .................................. Post-production Project: The Electric Candle $500

SEMP SERIES D ire c to rs ............................ D. Haythornthwaite, J. Ollivier, G. Chase, P. Noyce, K. McPhee, J. Sharp P ro d u c e r............................................ T. Manfield Production C om pany................ Film Australia Screenw riters.......................... as per Directors Photography.................................. Dean Semler E d ito rs ................................................ M. Walters, C. Sodensen Production Manager ...................... P. Deamer Sound R eco rd ist............ , ............. R. Simmons Mixer ................................ ..............J. Ellingworth Assistant D ire c to r................................ S. Boring Camera O p e ra to r............................. L. Chittick E lectrician............................................... B. Gailey Synopsis: 10 short stimulus films about children’s problems.

Colour P ro c e s s ...................................... Eastman Length ...................................... .... 10 x 10 mins Progress ......................................................Editing

In view of the rapid growth of Australian production the co­ ordinator of this column would be greatly assisted by in­ dividual producers and direc­ tors sending their production details and stills to: Production Survey, Cinema Papers, 143 Therry Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000.

APOLOGY The photographs of Salo in the last issue were taken by Deborah Beer.

Secret Picture Productions Project: The Secret of Paradise Beach $175,000 Steve Otton Highway Productions Project: Lost in the Tube on Highway One $28'146 Loata Pty. Limited Project: Mangrove $25,000

COUNCIL

Limelight Productions Pty. Limited Project: The Picture Show Man $250,000

MANPOWER TRAINING

Hexagon Pty. Limited Project: Mrs Eliza Fraser $300,000 Telemark Productions Pty Limited Project: Child’s Play $5180

Roger Whittaker The Stonehouse Project: The Big Pay Off $7050

Yoram Gross Film Studio Pty Limited Project: Dot and the Kagaroo $121,268

Donald Crombie Project: The Irishman $6578 Milton Jugerson Production Centre Pty Limited Project: Ham ’n Eggs $3287

Ron McLean/Neil James Project: Dianna $1900 John Timlin Australian Performing Group Project: Dimboola $8000 David Stevens Project: Lola $9475 Joy Cavili Aquataurus Film Productions Pty Ltd Project: Dawn $8000 Gil Brealey Film Consultants (SA) Pty. Limited Project: The Children of Darkness

$ 10,000

Executive Producer ............ Lesley Hammond S creen p lay................................................... HelenCovernton Distribution Company ..........................S.A.F.C. Synopsis: To motivate people towards under­ taking job training.

Length ................................................. 20 minutes Gauge ...........................................................16mm S ponsor.......................... Department of Labour and Industry

RURAL STUDIES

Malcolm Doullas Films Project: Worara Country $7080 Homestead Films Project: Both Ends Against the Middle $ 200,000

Distribution Promotion Assistance Crawford Productions Pty Limited Overseas Print Sales $99,590

Peter Maxwell Project: Mutiny at Castle Forbes $4635 Michael Pate Pisces Productions Pty Limited Project: The Mango Tree $1500

Executive P ro d u c e r.......... .... Malcolm Smith S cre e n p la y ................................ Caroline Ainslie Synopsis: A film for the Unley City Council about the problems they face today.

Length ................................................. 20 minutes Gauge ...........................................................16mm S ponsor.......................................... Unley Council

Artis Film Productions Pty. Limited Project: Break of Day $225,000

Ian Barry Project: Sparks $3000

Derrick C. Wynne Studio Corporation Productions Pty. Ltd. Project: A Bit of Dirt $5000

Production Manager .................... Peggy Limb Editing ........................................ Wayne Le Clos M u s ic .............................................. Schmoe & Co Sound R ecordist............................ Robert Currie Synopsis: An impressionistic treatment of the resources of the State of South Australia.

Length ................................................. 15 minutes Gauge ...............

35mm Colour P ro c e s s ...................

Eastmancolor

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN FILM CORPORATION

D ire c to r........................................Ron Saunders P ro d u cer...........................................................SueMogg Executive Producer ..................Malcolm Smith Production C om pany............ S-M Productions Screenplay ..................................... Brian Bergln Directory of Photography Edwin Scragg ACS Sound ..............................Soundtrack Australia E d ito r............................................................. JustinMilne Sponsor Liaison .........................Maurice Byrne Synopsis: Aimed at farmers to show the value of continuing their education.

Length ............................................. 20 minutes Gauge ..........................................................16mm Sponsor........ South Australian Department of Further Education

SHAPES IN SPACE THE BIG BACKYARD D ire c to r..............................................Igor Auzins Executive Producer ..................Peter Dlmond Production C om pany................Milton Ingerson Film and Television Production Director of Photography........David Foreman M u s ic ............................................Schmoe & Co. Editing ......................................... David Pulbrook Sound R ecordist............................Rod Pascoe Synopsis: A young bride is cautious at first about spending her honeymoon in South Australia's outback, but discovers the wonder and magic of this unusual countryside.

Length ................................................17 minutes Gauge ..........................................................35mm Colour P ro c e s s .......................... Eastmancolor

y

ELEMENTS

D ire c to r................................................ Gil Brealey Executive Producer .................... Peter Dimond Production C om pany......................Film Makers i Aust. Pty. Ltd. S creen p lay...................... ........... Russell Porter Director of Photography . . . Ron Lowe A.C.S.

Executive Producer ............Lesley Hammond S cre e n p la y ................................Terry Jennings Distribution C o m p a n y ......................................... ..S.A.F.C. Synopsis: A film on the work of the Adelaide sculptor, Bert Flugelman.

Length ................................................. 10 minutes Gauge ........................................................ ,35mm S ponsor....................................... Art Gallery of South Australia

UPSTREAM, DOWNSTREAM D ire c to r.............................................................IgorAuzins Executive Producer .................... Peter Dimond Production C om pany.............. Milton Ingerson Film & Television Production S cre e n p la y ................................ Yvonne Graves Director of Photography........ Milton Ingerson Editing ........................................David Pulbrook Sound ................................................Rod Pascoe Synopsis: A family enjoys a holiday on a Murray River houseboat, each taking turns at being Captain.

Length ................................................. 15 minutes Gauge ..........................................................35mm Colour P ro c e s s ............................Eastmancolor

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Above: Detail from poster for Mrs Eliza

Frazer as printed in Variety.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 65

Mad Dog is a new film by Australian film­ maker Philippe Mora, director of the controver­ sial documentary-features Swastika (1972) and Brother Can You Spare A Dime (1974), two films that have attracted world-wide attention and considerable praise.

Produced by Jeremy Thomas (editor of Brother Can You Spare A Dime), Mad Dog is one of the most ambitious feature film projects to be launched in Australia in recent years.

Made on the low budget of $450,000, the production was jointly financed by private in­ vestors and the Australian Film Commission.

The story of Mad Dog centres on the life of bushranger, Daniel Morgan who lived during the tumultuous Gold Rush era. Morgan became one of Australia’s most notorious outlaws, whipping the colonial authorities into a frenzy of anger and frustration. Outraged, the contemporary press conducted a hysterical and sensationalistic campaign against him for almost three years.

Described variously as a monster, animal, manic rapist and mad killer, Morgan developed a reputation as the most bloodthirsty of all highway robbers.

Based on a true story, the screenplay for Mad Dog was written by Mora and researched by Margaret Carnegie, a historian and author of two books concerning Morgan and the settlers of the vast Riverina district of southern New South Wales, the scene of Morgan’s exploits.

Carnegie’s research into Morgan’s life was conducted over a period of 12 years and in that time she carefully untangled the facts from 66 — Cinema Papers, June-July

the invention and hearsay, and discovered a wealth of new and often sensational information.

Mad Dog was shot entirely on location in the Riverina and the North East of Victoria. The locations used were, wherever possible, the ac­ tual ones. Working in conjunction with Carnegie, weeks were spent in pre-production visiting station homesteads, police stations, court houses and other sites abandoned for over 100 years. Among the authentic locations traced, was Morgan’s famous cave hideout, hidden deep in the rugged Yambla Range, and discovered for the first time since Morgan left in 1865.

The cast of Mad Dog is headed by American actor Dennis Hopper, who plays Daniel Morgan. The supporting cast is Jack Thompson, Frank Thring, David Gulpilil, Michael Pate, Bill Hunter, John Hargreaves, Robin Ramsay, Graeme Blundell, Peter Cummins, Martin Harris, John Derum, Chuck Faulkner, Bruce Spence, . . . ' Using a production base at Holbrook in the heart of the Riverina, Mad Dog was shot in six weeks over 36 shooting days between October 27 and December 6, 1975. The production schedule, devised by Associate Producer Richard Bren­ nan, was ambitious, left little room for delays or setbacks, and relied on clear warm Spring weather. Therefore, the heavy rain that started to fall two weeks before shooting — and developed into the heaviest rainfall ever record­ ed in the area — was the cause for some alarm.

But it wasn’t until the local creek flooded, rising

over 22 feet and washing away virtually the en­ tire set for the film’s largest sequences — the goldfields — that the production team started to worry.

Over 80 per cent of the film was located out of doors and had the rain continued the small amount of wet weather cover that was available in the schedule would have had to be slotted into the first week of shooting, thus creating mayhem in the set construction department and gigantic problems with the ensuing cancellation and rebooking of actors.

Brennan consulted Thomas and Mora and the decision was taken to stick to the original schedule and take the weather as it came.

During that first week of shooting the rain continued unabated and rendered access to most of the outdoor locations almost impossible. Con­ voys of 4-wheel-drive vehicles were hired, and actors and equipment were ferried through boggy paddocks and across flooded creeks.

At the end of the first week the rain suddenly stopped. Shooting continued, and with only minor delays the production moved forward. On the 29th day the base was moved from Holbrook to Beechworth in Victoria where shooting was completed on schedule on December 8.

In the pages that follow, a pictorial record of Mad Dog’s 36 shooting days have been compiled

by Peter Beilby, a Cinema Papers editor, and production supervisor of Mad Dog. All the photographs are by Angus Forbes.* * A complete crew and cast list can be found in the 35mm production survey.

Day 1: Monday, October 27. Bush near Holbrook, NSW.* Fine.

22 . * * C am eram an M ike M oiloy looks on w hile a stand-in for Dennis H opper runs through a dialogue sequence with Lester Morris, Ivor Bowyer and Frank Hamilton.

Day 2: Tuesday, October 28. Granite outcrops near Walla Walla, NSW. Fine. 18

Day 3: Wednesday, October 29. Abandoned bluestone quarry near Culcairn, NSW. Fine. 27.

Assistant D irector M ike Lake (far left) and D irector P hilippe Mora watch w hile Key Grip Graeme M ardell prepares to move the Panavi­ sion cam era (PVSR) onto tracks set up fo r a high-angle.

W atched by actor Terry Gill, Dennis H opper discusses the treat­ ment of a close-up of his branded hand with D irector Mora. On the left, Camera O perator John Seale watches through the PVSR.

Day 4: Thursday, October 30. Benambra State Forest, NSW. Rain and Sun. 19.

Day 5: Friday, October 31. Benambra State Forest, NSW. Rain and Sun. 19.

Day 6: Saturday, November 1. Brae Springs Station near Walla Walla, NSW. Fine. 14.

A fter a tortuou s crew prepares to Assistant W endy close-up in which

journey in 4-w heel-drives along boggy tracks, the shoot. M ake-up artist Liz M ichie and W ardrobe Robinson prepare actor John Hargreaves for a he Is wounded In the shoulder.

Using a Leyland Moke m odified for location film w ork by Key Grip Graeme M ardell, the cam era crew prepare to shoot a horse chase se­ quence. The cam era is an unblim ped A rriflex equipped with a high speed m otor to slow down the bumps. Behind the cam era is John Seale, and standing, focus puller Peter Rogers.

To reach this location, crew and equipm ent were ferried in 4-wheeldrive vehicles for three miles across rocky outcrops to a saddle of solid granite which com m anded a breathtaking view of the valley belpw. Shooting was continually delayed by Interm ittent cloud cover.

Above, the cam era crew, with shot lined up, wait for the signal to roll from D irector of Photography, M ike Moiloy.

Day 7: Monday, November 3. Jirrima Station near Gerogery, NSW. Rain. 13.

Day 8: Tuesday, November 4. Piney Ranges near Walbundrie, NSW. Overcast. 11.

Bogged. C ontinuous rain on Sunday had turned the farm ing land w hich provided access to the days location into a quagm ire. After three of the unit's 4-w heel-drives had becom e bogged, a tra ctor was called In to carry the cam era crew ’s crane. It had to be winched out.

Day 9: Wednesday, November 5. Jirrima Station near Gerogery, NSW. Rain and Sun. 18. .....

Sound Recordist Ken Hamm ond plays back a dialogue sequence on his Nagra for C ontinuity Person Gilda Barachi. W atching on is Boom O perator Joe Spinelli.

David M itchell lies patiently In position while D irector Mora and W ardrobe Assistant W endy Robinson discuss ways to make him up for the bloody afterm ath of an encounter with Dan Morgan.

Day 10: Thursday, November 6. Walla Walla Swamp near Walla Walla, NSW. Showers. 16.

Day 11: Friday, November 7. Kiradeen stock reserve near Culcairn, NSW. Fine. 14.

Clapper/Loader Robert Marden (left), D.P. Moiloy and Focus Puller Rogers discuss how they will negotiate the final leg of a difficult track involving a group of galloping horsemen. The PVSR is mounted on a Spyder dolly.

Day 12: Saturday, November 8, Kiradeen stock reserve near Culcairn, NSW. Fine. 15.

Denis Hopper uses a ladder to provide an eye line for a reaction shot of Graeme Blundell (far right with hat). Hopper’s position approximates his height In a previous shot where he was mounted on a horse. .

Watched by Dennis Hopper and Max Fairchild (background), Key Grip Mardell uses a grappling hook to attach a rope to the branch of a nearby tree. The scene called for the branch to snap when Fairchild grabbed it In a dying rage. The stunt worked but the scene was dropped in the final out.

•While location changes were often made on one day, the photographs shown here are taken from the key location of each day’s shoot.

**This number refers to the number of separate shots taken on the particular day.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 67

Day 13: Monday, November 10. Abandoned pub, Cookardinia, NSW. Hot. 12.

Gaffer Brian Bansgrove (centre with hat) observes while D.P. Molloy checks light levels from a large soft light in the ceiling and the beam of a Brute arc positioned outside the window on the left. Actors Robin Ramsay (left) and Harold Baigent (right) wait in foreground.

Day 16: Thursday, November 13. Carabobola Station. Hot. 10.

On the set of a Chinese opium den, Props Master M onte Fieguth prepares for a special effects shot. The head in the foreground is a replica of actor Gerry Duggan’s head made by Special Effects A rtist Ivan Durrant. The life-like model was wired with an explosive and detonated to re-create the effect of the shotgun wounding.

Day 19: Monday, November 17. Urangeline Station near Bidgeemia, NSW. Hot. 10. .

The local fire brigade helps to put out several blazing haystacks.

The A rt Departm ent made its job easier — and a second take sim pler — by constructing the stacks around large wire cases (left).

Day 22: Thursday, November 20. Jindera Museum. Fine. 8.

Molloy and Bansgrove unveil their “secret weapon” — a 24 globe soft light. Built by Bansgrove, the soft light was used throughout the shooting to lift Interior light levels simply and effectively — without shadows.

68 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Day 14: Tuesday, November 11. Abandoned barn and stables near Cookardinia, NSW. Hot. 13.

Day 15: Wednesday, November 12. Corabobola Station near Culcairn, NSW. Hot. 13.

Local fire brigade officers put out a fire started during an action se­ quence. Once the flames were extinguished the roof was quickly restrawed by the art departm ent for a second take.

D irector Mora looks on anxiously during a run-through for the opening shot of the film . Mike Lake stands with bull horn ready to re­ position the 100 extras involved in activities over the tw o-acre set of an 1850s goldfield.

Day 17: Friday, November 14. Carabobola Station. Hot. 20.

The cam era crew prepares for a dolly into the opium den. The set, designed by A rt Director Bob Hllditch, was built with floating walls that could be removed (as above) to allow m axim um flexibility in the selection of shooting positions.

Day 20: Tuesday, November 18. Urangeline Station. Hot. 16.

The crew agreed that one of the most d ifficu lt jobs this day was to catch the pigs used in several scenes at the end of the day’s shooting.

Here a farm er dives at a particularly fast quarry pursued by crew members. ,

Day 23: Friday, November 21. Yarra Yarra Station near Holbrook, NSW. Hot. 15.

The camera crew sets up the PVSR on a special scaffold which can be erected and collapsed in minutes. Ian Plummer aims the arc while Molloy positions a piece of polystyrene to reflect the sun’s rays.

Below, Hairdresser William Kenrick makes last minute adjustments to Dennis Hopper’s beard.

Day 18: Saturday, November 15. Flaxvale Station near Goonbarganam, NSW. Hot. 20.

W atched by W ardrobe Master Bruce Finlayson (standing right), Monte Fieguth shows Liz Michie and Mora the size of a blood sack to be used in the com ing scene. These sacks were taped under the ac­ tors’ clothing and exploded by small detonators.

Day 21: Wednesday, November 19. Jindera Museum, Jindera, NSW. Fine. 8.

Using a special Panavision view finder which Incorporates different size masks to approxim ate the field of a given lens, M ora lines up a low-angle — aided by D. P. Molloy.

Day 24: Saturday, November 22. Yarra Yarra Station. Hot. 18.

Associate Producer Richard Brennan (left) watches while crew members make last minute adjustments to Hopper’s costume, beard and special effects devices before a take.

Day 25: Monday, November 24. Morgan’s Cave, Yambla Range near Gerogery, NSW. Hot. 20.

Day 26: Tuesday, November 25. Woolpack Inn Museum, Holbrook, NSW. Fine. 16.

To shoot inside this spectacular conglom erate rock cave, half the crew w orked through Sunday shifting equipm ent by 4-wheel-drive, and then on foot, miles into the rugged foothills of the Yambla Range.

They cam ped there the night and were joined in the m orning by the rest of the crew. It took two hours to get in and fou r to get out, leaving only a few hours to shoot.

Mora shares a joke with M aggie Blinco and Tony Hawkins who played Queen V ictoria and Prince Albert. The set, erected in a V ic­ torian bedroom exhibit of the museum, recreated Queen V ictoria’s boudoir. The scene was dropped in the final cut.

Day 28: Thursday, November 27. Piney Ranges near Walbundrie.

NSW. Fine 12.

Day 29: Friday, November 28. Woolshed Falls near Beechworth, Victoria. Fine. 6.

Following a m otor cycle accident the night before, D. P. Molioy arrives on set with a broken hand. But he quickly dem onstrated to gaffer Brian Bansgrove that, despite the plaster cast, he could still use his Tewe viewfinder.

P roducer Jeremy Thomas looks askance at Dennis H opper who, with hair in curlers for a com ing scene, com pares a Polaroid con tinui­ ty shot with an actual photograph of Daniel Morgan.

Day 31: Monday, December 1. Bush near Stanley, Victoria. Fine.

Day 32: Tuesday, December 2. Gunpowder magazine near Beechworth, Victoria. Rain and Cloud. 16.

8.

Assistant D irector M ike Lake indicates the position of a jutting branch fo r Stuntm an Grant Page. The scene to be shot involved riding at full gallop into the branch, positioned at chest height. Page wore a special harness attached to an elastic rope (top right) which was to pull him up with only inches between his chest and the branch.

Day 34: Thursday, December 4. Court House, Beechworth, Vic­ toria. Fine. 18.

Assisted by Continuity Person Gllda Barachi, Mora gives Frank Thring his position for a low-angle shot.

Mike Molioy takes a weather check while Mora runs through dialogue with Robin Ramsay. This scene was dropped in the final cut.

Day 35: Friday, December 5. Woolshed Falls. Fine. 17.

Assisted by Simon Purtln, Mora adjusts an Ivan Durant model for a special effects shot. The model was extremely life-like, with real blood and flesh filling the latex skin. In this scene, a .39 calibre bullet was shot at point blank range into the palm of the model’s hand.

Day 27: Wednesday, November 26. Shed, Holbrook, NSW. Fine.

18.

M ake-up A rtist Liz M ichie "ages” a scar on Dennis H opper’s hand during a series of tim e transition shots.

Day 30: Saturday, November 29. Woolshed Falls. Hot. 12.

Standing on a narrow ledge above a 25m sheer drop, Dennis Hopper (left) and Stuntman Grant Page (far right) prepare fo r a spec­ tacular stunt in which Page, engulfed In flames, falls backwards off the ledge into a shallow pool of water below. In the centre, Graeme M ardell secures a safety rope around Hopper.

Day 33: Wednesday, December 3. Court House, Beechworth, Vic­ toria. Rain. 14.

Frank Thring waits fo r m ake-up at the start of the day's shoot.

Day 36: Saturday, December 6. Ovens River, Whorouly, Victoria.

Rain. 4.

The bulk of the crew had left the night before for a day’s pick-up In Sydney on Monday. A skeleton crew rose at 3 am to shoot the final scene — a dawn river crossing. Stills Photographer Forbes didn’t make it — but he thoughtfully filed this picture for the day. ★

Cinema Papers, June-July — 69

TH E GREATER UNION ORGANISATION PTY. LIM ITED BRITISH EM PIRE FILM S PTY. LIM ITED are proud to be exhibiting,distributing and investing in a further three Australian productions

. . . EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED Starring

ARTHUR DIGNAM • RUFUS m i- i-u v c ANDREW SHARP

and KATE

NELL C / j j W g fih K .

FITZPATRICK „ RACHHMW W B

Written by JOHN

Produced by MICHAEL T H O R N l^y ||H B E y !^ -

Produced & Directed by Chris L5fv6n from an original screenplay by Chris Lofven

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SARA KCSTCLMAN ANDRCW McFARLANG

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P roduced by PATRICIA LOVELL D irected by K€N HANNAM From an original screenplay b y CLIFF GR€€N

■ËËÉ Helen Morse, as Caddie,

manages to suggest vulnerability and fear without soppiness or weakness, and realism and toughness without cynicism or insensitivity. Caddie.

C A D D IE Jack Clancy Caddie is pretty much the film the Australian film industry needs at present.

After the line of eponymous male heroes that began with Stork, and has stretched through the Alvins and the Barry McKen­ zies, Peterson and MacArthy, and more recently, Scobie Malone and The Man from Hong Kong, Caddie not only presents a necessary change to a film centred on a female character, but it can also be read as a catalogue, most entertainingly presented, of feminist grievances.

T h e s to r y , b a s e d on C a d d ie ’s autobiography, is of a middle-class Sydney woman in 1925 who leaves her philandering husband, taking the two young children with her, and of her efforts over the next eight or so years to keep and support them. She does this, before, during and after the economic depression of 1930, by working as a bar­ maid, and the phrase that recurs several times during the film, “only a bloody bar­ maid” , is a key to this very effective ex­ amination of class and sexist attitudes in pre-war Australia.

Caddie (Helen Morse) struggles for sur­ vival against the double handicap of being a woman and having no visible father for her children, and she must do this in an environ­ ment for which the comfortable protected life of suburbia has not prepared her, all of

which produces jibes like “broken-down toff’, “get your brats out of here” and “where’s your old man anyway?”

There are the added anxieties of childminding facilities, the barely suggested threat of predatory street males to a lonely woman, and the crudeness of the male at­ titudes that lie not far below the surface— thus Ted (Jack Thompson), the S.P. Bookmaker, wanting to ditch his de facto wife in favour of Caddie, refers to her as a “dirty slut” when she becomes an in­ convenience to his plans. Through her bar­ maid friend, Josie (Jacki Weaver), Caddie discovers the helplessness and vulnerability of the pregnant single woman. Josie tells Caddie that, “she went to a woman and got fixed up”, but through the subsequent com­ plications there is no help from the father, whose friends refuse to reveal his whereabouts. Josie’s bitter remark, “that’s mateship for you”, throws a different light on that popular Australian term.

In other respects too — trying to get un­ employment relief, being under threat that any “immoral” behaviour on her part will endanger her right to keep the children, hav­ ing to provide her “husband’s name and oc­ cupation” when buying furniture on terms — Caddie is thoroughly disadvantaged as a woman and single mother. Against that, there is the conspirational solidarity of her fellow-barmaids, and the working-class solidity of the Depression — represented, particularly, by the rabbit sellers who help Caddie through her illness.

The danger in a film on this subject must have been that Caddie would emerge as too much a saint and martyr. That this danger is clearly overcome is to the credit of Helen Morse’s splendid (and, as far as one can tell, splendidly directed) performance as Caddie, and Joan Long’s script. Helen Morse manages to suggest vulnerability and fear, without soppiness or weakness, and realism and toughness, without cynicism or insen­ sitivity. The script is consistently effective without going for the easy laugh (lines like, “ I’m as dry as a vulture’s crutch” , are authentic without being self-consciously colourful, and Josie’s reply to Caddie’s “ He’s on the level” , “Yeah, what level?”, is simple and telling) and, like the film as a whole, most impressive at its most poignant moments, especially the Depression scenes.

A second danger must have been that the hardships and grimness of the times would be too depressing, a danger also avoided by the life and energy of the performances, as well as the lightness of touch that allowed room for both humorous moments and moments of genuine feeling.

Most of the memorable performances are female ones—Melissa Jaffer and Jacki Weaver as barmaids, and Kirilli Nolan as the other woman—but there are splendid cameos from John Ewart and any number of the male drinkers in Caddie’s bars, though they contribute little more than their faces.

Ron Blanchard and Drew Forsythe are effective as the rabbitohs, and Takis Em­ manuel, as the urgent Greek who becomes

Caddie’s lover, is utterly convincing. The surprising disappointment is Jack Thomp­ son, who goes through the part of Ted the spiv with what looks like a permanent smirk on his face.

Caddie manages its period setting beautifully, although one does tire slightly of the obligatory vintage car or horse and cart in nearly every exterior shot. However, the art department, on what must have been a limited budget, has worked wonders in enabling the director to explore the texture and feel of the physical world of the 1920s to catch that style and those trappings which are a familiar revelation and which are enor­ mously important, as they were in Sunday Too Far Away and Picnic at Hanging Rock, in bringing us into contact with our own world, and in creating the authenticity that will be convincing to other audiences.

There are, it must be added, scenes in the film which are not completely successful; in particular an absolutely central scene between Caddie and her Greek lover, Peter, where Caddie becomes angry at his implied criticism of barmaids and reacts sharply, while he is left bewildered and apologetic. It is awkwardly shot and has a lumpy, clumsy feel about it. Like this scene, most of the film is done in standard, economical medium close-up, which usually allows the material breathing space, but makes no claims to visual inventiveness or ex­ pressiveness. What there is of this latter quality comes almost totally from the happy mixture of settings and performances, and a brilliantly effective soundtrack.

I am uncomfortably aware that all of the above — one critic’s soberly judged weighing up of qualities — gives little of the feel of the* film; it all sounds too horribly neutral and uninvolved. Perhaps I could suggest my own response to it, more particularly to a second viewing, by using the word Dickensian — by which I mean its combination of harsh grotesqueness (the six o’clock swill, the fight between the women in the “sow’s pen”, the drinking party at the child-minding centre, the beaten-up prostitute) and the unashamed directness of feeling. Any film which can take those ancient cliches — the desperately ill child who must pull through the night, and the doctor who refuses to ask for payment — and make them, not only convincing, but moving, has to have a lot going for it.

Caddie is a film which shows both heart and intelligence, and nowhere more than in its very last sequence which sees Caddie walking home up the hill, after a day at work, her body slumped and heavy with tiredness. She goes to her bed and collapses on it, her children’s mildly quarrelling voices in the background. Desperate for rest, she is pounced on by the two children, and has to raise herself and attend to them, play with them, talk to them. The scene catches beautifully her strength and her capacity to survive and endure.

It is for the simple purity of feeling, which scenes like this convey, that we will remember Caddie with gratitude and affec­ tion.

CADDIE. Directed by Don Crombie. Distributed

by Roadshow. Produced by Anthony Buckley.

Screenplay by Joan Long. Adapted from the autobiography of the same name. Production Company, Anthony Buckley Productions Pty Ltd. Director of Photography, Peter James. Edited by Tim Wellburn. Art Direction by Owen Williams.

Sound by Des Bone. Players: Helen Morse, Takis Emmanuel, Kirilli Nolan, Jacki Weaver, Jack Thompson, Melissa Jaffer, Ron Blanchard, Drew Forsythe, Phillip Hinton. Eastmancolor. Length 107 mm. Australia. 1976. "

THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

Tom Allen (Simon Burke), at right, listens to a treatise on the importance of self-control.

The Devil’s Playground John O’Hara Fred Schepisi has filmed an authentic reconstruction of a particular Australian Irish-Catholic childhood. The Devil’s Playground is set in a seminary for young boys intending to enter a religious order of teaching brothers. The time is 1953, and the period setting comes across effectively, not so much in the use of elaborate mocked-up sets, as in the ways attitudes are stated — es­ pecially religious attitudes towards personal commitment, sexuality • and brotherhood.

Further, the buildings and grounds are photographed to suggest a timeless period, a recollection of childhood in which individual experience takes place against a background of echoing stone chambers and hallways, wide expanses of lawn giving way to a lake and then the bush. The countryside (filmed mainly at Werribee) appears arrestingly beautiful, the colours surprisingly deep.

There is one sequence of a picnic, shot beside a pool in the river and framed through trees from the other side of the river-bank, in which the colours of the water, smoke from the fire and the gum trees echo some of the earlier painting of the Australian landscape, particularly McCubbin. On film, the country looks more intense, perhaps more lyrical and even mysterious. Several new Australian films this year have captured just this sense of the landscape, especially Peter Weir’s Pic­ nic at Hanging Rock and John Duigan’s The Trespassers. Each of them was shot in different areas of Victoria, but they have brought the landscape alive in a new and dis­ tinctive way, as though a generation of film­ makers was seeing the country for the first

time.

The photography of the buildings in Devil’s Playground emphasizes also the in­ timidating effects of the institution upon the young boys just entering their teens and up to the end of their school days. There is one shot of the 12 year-old Tom Allen (Simon Burke), as he stands on the first floor balcony of the seminary, or more accurately, the juniorate. He is framed by vaulting stone arches. The shot cuts to another view taken side-on to the building and the succession of arches appears compressed and unreal as though the building has been deformed around the figure of the boy.

Mostly, though, this sort of effect is restrained through the film, and it proceeds as a series of interrelated episodes, slowly drawing together different threads of daily life in the seminary. These are mainly con­ cerned with the development of attitudes towards the religious life (the fostering of one's vocation) and the stresses of growing up in such restrictive surroundings. The slowly paced opening sequences set a mood of deliberate and controlled exploration of the effects on the students and members of the sta ff. The boys are in sta n tly recognizable: those ears and hairstyles and pimples; the softness and awkwardness marked on different faces that one remembers from one’s own schooldays. The enthusiasm is authentic, as well, whether the boys are playing pool, gardening in the huge grounds, playing sport, singing hymns in a dull masculine roar in the chapel or ex­ perimenting with first sexual discoveries.

The brothers are similarly cast to type, although the performances are so good they might well have been the originals. One is a young, fresh-faced student brother, strug­ gling to pass his exams, (he is not very bright or experienced but almost painfully well

meaning). Another, the most lively of them, strung out on his iron cot. The screen is filled is a bluff, good-humored man who likes his with swirling water, and through this blue drink and his football; he is firmly com­ and green marineland swim naked women, mitted to the brotherhood, but he sees clear­ rather like strangely-sexed dolphins. They ly enough the artificial and unreal con­ flaunt and pirouette like animated cut-outs straints the life imposes upon him. In one from Playboy, and that was probably the in­ small but very funny sequence, he is drinking tentional reference. But that, kind of styliza­ in a bar after the footy match, and finally tion just doesn’t fit with the deliberately un­ screws up enough determination to approach derstated imagery of most of the film. The two women and sit down and drink with second sequence comes towards the end, them. Shortly afterwards, he returns to the when Dignam finally cracks and explodes in car and tells his companion with a kind of a long tirade of abuse about the evil body bewildered, male bluntness: "They were and the need for rigid discipline. This is one serious. They nearly got me.” The scene is of the few places in the him where the script shot with an understated humour, just becomes unnecessarily heavy and ex­ touching the sharp, erotic edge of the man’s planatory. dissatisfaction.

Mostly, the effects come through a careful Among the rest of the brothers there is interweaving of small occasions: the regular the inevitable old retired teacher, who looks trips of Tom to the bathroom to wash out his like a confusion of walking blankets and who bed-clothes after he has wet them; his electrifies the brothers (and the audience) at relationship with a much older boy whose in­ one point by testifying to his belief in the dependence is finally crucial to his own practice of masturbation. It is rather like an ' growing-up; and his momentary passion for octogenarian giving his recipe for long life. a young girl he meets while his mother com­ The head of the brothers has just that kind of es to visit him. Each of these incidents and serious pudding face one associates, with relationships represents fragmentary reac­ good intentions and enthusiasm for dis­ tions to the repression of the seminary; cipline, the chapel and the outdoor life. attempts to push back the limits that are Perhaps the least successful of the constantly enforced by the head brother, in brothers is the gaunt ascetic, played like a his not unkindly, but thoroughly unseeing highly stretched piano wire by Arthur way.

Dignam. He has an unenviable role: the kind The atmosphere of nervous, repressed in­ of religious fanatic who despises his own stinctual life is best reflected in the sequence body but is riddled by lust; who attempts to of the retreat, which is conducted by a cheer­ enforce the rigorous discipline on others and ful Franciscan, played by Tom Keneally as is tormented by sexual fantasies himself. The though he were born to it. He brings out the tendency to caricature that his presence cliches th at studded one’s C atholic creates is modified to some extent by the ob­ schooldays, about sin, guilt, confession, vious scepticism and even mockery that his redemption; of the horrors of Hell, and the manners provoke. grotesque attempts to represent a condition But there are two sequences that appear of endless punishment. The rhetoric of con­ awkward and over-stated in the film. One is version is well suggested, although without the visual depiction of the fantasies as he lies the passion and ferocious intensity that

THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

— HB■

The picnic sequence with its echoes of early Australian painting, particularly McCubbin. The Devil’s Playground.

Arthur Dignam, as the tortured Brother Francine, orders Tom Allen to shower with his bathers on. The Devil’s Playground.

Brother Victor (Nick Tate), the good-humoured priest who likes his beer and his football, in a reflective, doubting moment. The Devil’s Playground.

James Joyce brings to his description in Portrait o f the Artist, and certainly without the fire that a Redemptorist might have brought to the subject. The best scene of the retreat though, and one brilliantly brought off, shows the boys wandering about the lake in silence but darting implied suggestions and dares to each other. Tom starts idly pitching pebbles in the lake, and in a few moments the atmosphere of the retreat is riotously shattered.

Perhaps the most convincing effect of this kind of sequence is the brittle, nervous mood (just touching on hysteria) that religious ex­ ercises like this generate. And when the retreat is over the boys sit down to a feast, the tables lined with the garish colours of fizzy drink and collections of party cakes.

Again, the composition of the scene and the use of colour suggest a precarious kind of celebration, as though the boys derive their energy and inspiration from their surroun­ dings — chapel, schoolroom and refectory.

This feeling reflects exactly the attempt by the religious institution to sublimate instinct and mould enthusiasm by specific and cons­ tant discipline. Fred Schepisi’s film has caught this tone beautifully, and given us the best film to date about growing up in a par­ ticular Australian environment.

THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND. Directed by Fred Schepisi. Produced by Fred Schepisi.

Screenplay by Fred Schepisi. Production Com­ pany. The Feature Film House. Director of P hoto g rap h y , lan Baker. Edited by Brian Kavanagh. Music by Bruce Smeaton. Art Direc­ tion by Trevor Ling. Sound by Don Connolly.

Players: Arthur Dignam, Nick Tate, Simon Burke, Charles McCullum, John Frawley, Jonathan Har­ dy, Gerry Duggan, Peter Cox, John Diedrich, T hom as K enneally. E astm ancolor. Length 107 min. Australia. 1976.

The brothers relax prior to the electrifying testimony on the need for masturbation from the old brother (at left). The Devil’s Playground.

/

THE TRESPASSERS

DOG DAY AFTERNOON

veys a very strong sense of the emotional currents having been, to some extent, charted; of people having been changed by the experiences they have been through; and of the motives and impulses that people bring to the complex business of emotional politics having been, to some extent, laid bare.

The Film’s great strengths are in the ex­ traordinarily strong performances of the two women, Judy Morris as Dee and Briony Behets as Penny. There is a nicely selfeffacing sketch from Chris Haywood as Dee’s local farmer, and a perhaps too recessive performance from John Derum as Richard.

Vincent Monton’s cinematography gets a nice immediate feel of Carlton and makes full use of the Westernport landscapes. The script, burdened with a little too much ex­ planation and earnest self-questioning about committed relationships, and whether “a relationship can survive with other scenes going on” and whether “if you analyse yourself you finish up strangling your emotions”, could perhaps have done with some lightening and tightening.

But the effect of the Film, for me, was ex­ citing. It is the work of a young Filmmaker and it is honest, mature and serious. It is also, unless you want hang-gliding on Sydney Harbour, entertaining.

THE TRESPASSERS. Directed, Produced and Screenplay by John Duigan. D istributed by Filmways. Executive Producer, Richard Brennan.

Production Company, Vega Film Productions Pty Ltd. Director of Photography, Vince Monton.

Edited by Tony Patterson. Art Direction by Gill Armstrong. Sound by Lloyd Carrick. Players: Judy Morris, Briony Behets, John Derum. Eastmancolor. Length 92 min. Australia. 1976.

Penny (Briony Behets) at the farmhouse. John Duigan’s highly personal The Trespassers.

TH E TR E S P A S S E R S Jack Clancy As the current wave of Australian Film­ making rolls on, there should be a place for Films as modest and ambitious as John Duigan’s The Trespassers. It is modest in terms of budget, and in terms of action, spectacle and tone; yet it is ambitious in the nature of its subject, and in its attempt (the only Australian Film to do so with the possi­ ble exception of Between Wars) at a drama which is largely internal. Where “what happens” is located most importantly within the characters, rather than outside or between them.

It is also, one should note, John Duigan’s Film in that, by writing and directing it, he is very much the chief creative force — in con­ trast to the essentially collaborative efforts that mark a Caddie, a Sunday Too Far Away and, I would guess, a Picnic at Hanging Rock.

The Film is set in Melbourne in 1970, which dates it effectively and awkwardly.

That time of Vietnam Moratoriums, draftresisters on the run, agonized television debates, and the still early days of the sexual revolution with its self-consciously blase at­ titudes, is both close to us in time and a long way distant in experience; we are not yet clear enough of it, I fear, to be able to look at it calmly. Thus the oddly dated language — “heavy”, “far-out” , “bread” , “cool”, “ scene” — may well grate with 1976 audiences.

It is possible, too, that the heavily earnest discussion of relationships might not be ■quite what 1976 wants to hear. If that were so, it would be a pity, because, quite apart from its far from negligible virtues of good taste and sensitivity, it shares with Caddie and Promised Woman the credit of breaking the male-dominated and male-oriented trend 74 — Cinema Papers, June-July

of Australian Films, and turning its attention not merely to the place of woman and to woman’s consciousness, but to an examina­ tion of relations between men and women.

The Trespassers is centred on a man and two women. Richard (John Derum), a jour­ nalist with radical sympathies, lives with Penny (Briony Behets), an aspiring writer, while engaging in an affair with Dee (Judy Morris), an actress and political activist.

While Dee is independent, Penny is very dependent on Richard, and when she Finds Richard and Dee together, she is hurt and confused by his deceit. When Penny and Dee later meet at an interview with a draftresister, they talk and develop a tentative friendship, and Penny agrees to go with Dee for a few days in the country. They see and explore different sides of each other until Richard arrives and the three of them Find they must re-examine themselves, their motivations and their relationships.

The title refers most obviously to the political situation — Western armies, in­ cluding Australia’s, in Vietnam; authorities trespassing on an individual’s right to refuse to join the war — but also to the inevitable sense of trespass which one party will impose on another in an emotional relationship. It is only at this point that the Film shows any sign of pretentiousness; the connection, it seems to me, has a trivializing effect and adds no dimension to either thematic element.

The greater part of the Film, however, is devoted to the menage a trois, and to the relationship between the two women. Each, during the stay at the country farmhouse, has her own adventure: Dee after a night at the local pub engages in the old sport of sex in the front seat of the car — a quietly and delightfully funny scene;’ Penny in hurt response seeks out one of the locals for a loveless encounter in a hotel bedroom. Two visitors whose car has broken down are Firmly, and in one case comically, repulsed by the two women.

These extra incidents, however, serve only to focus attention on the development of the two women’s attitudes towards each other, and thus towards Richard. There is a literal­ ly touching moment when the two girls make physical contact, though the Film does not spell out, or indeed make absolutely clear, whether they become lovers. The emotional sympathy that develops between them, however, in spite of Dee’s independent in­ sistence on pursuing her affair with her car companion, is a threat which the returning Richard Finds almost impossible to handle.

The Film ends with no solution to the relationships between the three, as in the nature of things there cannot be, yet it con-

D OG D A Y A F TE R N O O N Tom Ryan Dog Day Afternoon, based on fact and an article by B. F. Kluge and Thomas Moore, demonstrates those aspects of Sidney Lumet’s approach to Filmmaking which en­ courage one to attend his Films with an­ ticipation, as well as some of those which often lead to a disappointed departure.

It is written with considerable flourish by Frank Pierson, who worked for Lumet on The Anderson Tapes (1971), and who was the creative stimulus for the much-underrated and now defunct television series, Nichols (1972/73). It also marks again the fact that

Dreaming of Wyoming. Sal (John Cazale) during the bank hold-up in Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon.

SHERLOCK HOLMES’ SMARTER BROTHER

Lumet, in the 70s, seems to have left behind those ostentatiously serious dramas that characterized his earlier work.

Instead of A Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962) The Pawnbroker (1965) and The Sea Gull (1968), there are The Anderson Tapes, Serpico (1973) Murder On The Orient Express (1974) and now Dog Day Afternoon. And, as much as I prefer his honest translation to the screen of the O’Neill play to his reconstruction of Agatha Christie, it seems to me that, in his case, the shift towards more popular and less preten­ tious narrative forms has generally been for the good.

— This is not to say that he had not used these forms before; Fail-Safe (1964) and The Deadly Affair (1967) are good examples of their types.' It is merely to note what I see as a favorable trend, and with it should go the observation that, whatever the level of mediocrity to which history may relegate Lumet, the performances in his films are always of the highest order — from the dignity Henry Fonda brings to his roles in Twelve Angry Men (1957) and Fail-Safe, through Rod Steiger’s bravura in The Pawnbroker, to A1 Pacino’s inestimable con­ tributions to Serpico, and now Dog Day Afternoon.

Indeed, much of what is admirable about Dog Day Afternoon stems from Pacino’s presence—moving the character, Sonny, the amateur bank robber, from nervous excite­ ment at the prospect of actually succeeding in his attempt, to agonized frustration as he sees his whole world collapsing around him, irretrievably out of his control.

The performance slips away from Pacino and Lumet only occasionally, and shifts from character to caricature, the accent becoming too pronounced, the gestures too mannered.

For the rest, the actor is marvellous, succeeding in raising Sonny from a comic butt — taken seriously only because of the power he has suddenly found himself able to assert — to a thoroughly accessible human being, swept along towards something like self-recognition by a chain of events. In the end his dream of escape to some foreign country (he favors Algeria, his colleague suggests Wyoming) is fulfilled as much by arrest as it is by the plane for which he has bargained, using the hostages he has taken in the bank raid as currency for exchange.

The film is consistently funny: the humour nicely structured to lose its edge as the gravi­ ty of Sonny and Sal’s situation, and the im­ possibility of their ever escaping what is real­ ly wrong with them, becomes distressingly clear.

Things start to go wrong from the begin­ ning: having entered the bank, the youngest of the three criminals -loses his nerve and leaves, needing to be convinced that he should take the subway home rather than the getaway car; and then, having shown sur­ prising know-how in his execution of the hold-up — avoiding the trap alarms — Sonny unwittingly calls attention to what is happening by setting fire to some bank files.

His action is never explained, simply ser­ ving, along with the presence of his two wives and his mother, to suggest his motiva­ tion for attempting the robbery in the first place.

Only when the pace of the first half of the film slows down does the tone change. The sharp editing, precise exchanges and shifting perspectives disappear and are replaced with longer takes and static frames, which define Sonny as a prisoner, both inside the bank and inside the frames which, in their gradual acquiring of a solid perspective, suggest in context that the choices facing him are limited as much by himself as by his situation. This is the same visual pattern which can be found in the development of Serpico, and its restraint is a far cry from the stylistic excesses of The Pawnbroker and The Hill (1965).

However, the intelligence Lumet brings here to his method is somewhat undermined

by what seems to be a self-conscious attempt to open out the isolated incident in the bank into a tapestry of American issues. The crowd of onlookers who gather to watch proceedings give voice to expressions of dis­ content from as many racial, ethnic and social minorities as you might care to im­ agine, and while Lumet’s pseudo-docu­ mentary presentation of them is by no means a simple endorsement, their intrusion leaves one wincing.

Much better is the depiction of the hostages and, allowing that much of the humour of their reaction to their situation is set up, Lumet’s sketching of them is rich with suggestion. Best of all is the bank manager, submitting without fuss to the demands of those who have disturbed the order of his world, quietly recognizing Son­ ny’s humanity, but remaining aloof from him, apologizing to his female staff for his profanity during his diabetic attack, and then, in spite of the oppressive heat, reassembling his dignity, replete with coat and tie. And, all the while, he remains in the background.

The variety of Lumet’s endeavours, his attention to performances and the details of individual images would seem to indicate that, rid of his aspirations to be ‘significant’, the future holds much for him. If this is the case, then Dog Day Afternoon should be seen in retrospect as an admirable beginning.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON. Directed by Sidney Lumet. Distributed by Columbia-Warner. Produc­ ed by Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand.

Associate Producer, Robert Greenhut. Screenplay

by Frank Pierson. Based on a magazine article by B. F. Kluge and Thomas Moore. Production Com­ pany, Artists Entertainment Complex. Director of Photography, Victor J. Klemper. Edited by Dede Allen. Art Direction by Douglas Higgens. Sound

by James Sabat. Players: A1 Pacino, John Cazale, Sully Boyar, Penelope Allen, Beulah Garrick, Carol Kane, Sandra Kazan, Marcie Jean Kurtz, Amy Levitt, John Marriott, Estelle Omens, Gary Springer. Technicolor. Length 130 min. U.S. 1975.

T H E A D V E N T U R E S OF SH ERLO CK H OLM ES’ SM ARTER BROTHER John C. Murray.

When you are one who has never been convinced that Mel Brooks is God’s gift to screen comedy, nor that Marty Feldman is as riotous a figure as the rest of the world seems to believe, you have two good reasons for approaching The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother with some mis­ givings. Written and directed by Brooks’s acolyte Gene Wilder and, according to the publicity at least, starring Marty Feldman in a key role, the film didn’t seem to hold much promise. As matters turned out, however, it proved to be an enjoyable experience, con­ taining more than a fair share of virtues.

The film’s overall success is, I think, due to two principal factors. First, the script is sufficiently strong on story, and Wilder’s attention sufficiently committed to story values, to give the film a clear, developed shape. To some extent, of course, the business of Sigerson Holmes (Gene Wilder) being recruited to track the whereabouts of a stolen state document is simply a peg on which to hang a set of comic performances — an excuse for people like Leo McKern, Madeline Kahn, Dom De Luis, Marty Feldman and Gene Wilder to strut their stuff.

But nonetheless there is a story, and Wil­ der’s respect for it helps to keep the humour under control. At. least one indication of this is that the anachronisms which could have studded a film set in Victorian London as tediously as those in the Old West of Blaz­ ing Saddles, are here kept to a minimum.

The hansom cab chase through dark and empty streets, and although not especially well directed, it is saved by Wilder’s regard for the old conventions. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother.

Queen Victoria (Susan Field) groans an “Oh in command as the leering Moriarty shit!” as Lord Redcliff (John Le Mesurier) (confessing to a coin-in-the-slot mechanical priest that he has this drive to do something completely mucks up what was meant to be evil every 24 m inutes; and getting a courtly withdrawal from her presence. And an “Absolved” card for his honesty). Gene Count Moriarty (Leo McKern), accepting Wilder creates quite a presence with the in­ bids for the stolen document from a French tense, sees-all-and-knows-all Sigerson, as­ representative and trying hopelessly to con­ sisted by a subdued Marty Feldman whose vert francs into pounds, appeals to no one in limited bag of comic mannerisms is drawn particular: “Christ, how do you do it?” That on only when necessary. And Madeline there are so few of these modernisms gives Kahn — the remarkable Madeline Kahn — their occasional presence a sharper edge.

Further, strange though it may seem in carries all before her. If there were any what is at heart a knockabout farce, doubts about her abilities since wiping the floor with Barbra Streisand in What’s Up, Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother has a Doc? and making the mess of Blazing number of sequences which possess a mood or tone true to all those fog-bound 19th Cen­ Saddles at least endurable, they must surely dissolve in the light of her work here. tury London dramas we know so well. There Whether singing, dancing, playing the is a set-piece confrontation between Sigerson and Moriarty in the props room of temptress, revelling in seduction, melting a music hall, a sequence crammed with with romantic sentiment or blazing with macabre masks and dummies, culminating anger, she is the complete comic actress in a cloudburst of coloured balloons through (and, one suspects, would prove herself the which the intrepid Sigerson thrashes a path complete dramatic actress.too, if ever given the opportunity). with his duelling sword. Another sequence, involving a hansom cab chase through dark There are some misjudgments in the film, and empty streets, although not especially however. The earlier stages of the story don’t hang together very well, and Wilder is prone well directed, is saved by Wilder’s regard for the old conventions — the comic excesses of to let scenes run on much longer than their comic content warrants. The one where the battle between Sigerson and his pursuers held in check by the visual references to Wilder and Feldman arrive at a soiree with earlier, more sombre films. their bums hanging out of their evening dress This awareness of mood gives Sherlock (to the unalloyed delight of a camp orchestra Holmes’ Smarter Brother what are arguably leader) is funny for a while, but is killed by .its two nicest moments. Having firmly over-extension.

The drift to excess is particularly marked located affairs in a world of bustles, in the freedom Wilder gives to Dom De Luis.

Aesthete hats and floppy bow-ties, cluttered interiors, horse-drawn carriages and smoky The latter’s role as the crazy Italian opera railway stations, Wilder cuts into this by in­ singer Gambetti is awkward to begin with, troducing a thoroughly unanticipated 30s being about the only part which is out of keeping with the Victoriana of the rest, and type dance routine — The Kangaroo.

Wilder compounds this by letting De Luis The dance, energetically paced by Wilder and Madeline Kahn, is repeated towards the run riot. He’s amusing, let it be said, but his end of the film. In each case it works quite extravagances don’t help the sense of con­ admirably, setting the conventions of one sisten cy th a t the w ritin g , ac tin g , photography, design and music have strand in the film tradition into counterpoint elsewhere combined to create. with those of another.

The second touch comes just before the Nonetheless, allowing these falls from .final credits. The mystery solved, Wilder and grace, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Kahn are shot in a romantic close-up, gazing Smarter Brother still has a good deal to recommend it. Apart from anything else, I’d deeply into each other’s eyes and seemingly floating in time and space. As the scene walk a million miles for one of Kahn’s smiles. fades, the soundtrack reintroduces a pert music-hall song Kahn had presented earlier, I've Got a Little Dimple in My Cheek. In a way that comes close to defying explanation, T H E A D V E N T U R E S O F S H E R L O C K HOLM ES’ SMARTER BROTHER. Directed by the combination of sights and sounds generates an almost touching sense of affec­ Gene Wilder. Distributed by Twentieth CenturyFox. Produced by Richard A. Roth. Screenplay by tion — affection, that is, by the filmmaker Gene Wilder. Director of Photography, Gerry for the material of his film.

Fisher. Edited by Jim Clark. Music by John The second main factor which gives Morris. Set Decoration by Peter Howitt. Sound by Simon Kaye. Players: Gene Wilder, Leo McKern, Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother a distinc­ Madeline Kahn, Dom de Luis, M arty Feldman. De tive character, is not unexpectedly, the Luxe Color. Length 91 min. Britain. 1975. strong performances. Leo McKern is wholly Cinema Papers, June-July — 75

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INNOCENTS WITH DIRTY HANDS

IN N O C E N T S W ITH D IR TY HANDS Tom Ryan One of the most striking aspects of Claude C habrol’s most recent film to reach Australia (a French, German and Italian co­ production made in 1974), is the way in which the ironies assume prominence. They have always been there, of course — defining the limitations of his characters, almost mocking their inability to see themselves — but for the most part, they have remained submerged within the narrative flow and the realization of character.

We have seen that in attempting to remove perceived obstacles against a pur­ sued happiness, whether those obstacles be another individual or a personal sense of guilt, Chabrol’s characters construct the final barrier against their ever achieving that happiness. In La Femme Infideie, for ex­ ample, Charles’ and Helene’s loveless marriage is revitalized by his murder of her lover, an act which irrevocably seals their separation.

But while on one level Chabrol seems to have been probing psychological motivation, and indicating that there is, ultimately, no way of locating it, on another he has been rendering it irrelevant, placing his dramas in the framework of previously defined patterns. The references to Tristan and Isolde (in Les Cousins), to Hamlet (in Ophelia), to the caves with the CroMagnon inscriptions (in Le Boucher), to The Eumenides (in Les Noces Rouges), and so on, suggest that the humanity which has in­ habited Chabrol’s films is doomed to repeat its folly. Viewed ia this sort of a context, the films seem much less about the entrapped bourgeois than about the impossibility of man ever being at peace with himself.

The model seems to be sustained in In­ nocents With Dirty Hands, both in terms of the chance for happiness recognized too late

and the film’s framework — which is largely constructed around Chabrol’s references to his own work — but is also defined in the character’s literal foreignness to each other if there is no way they can ever m eet. The plot is a familiar one: the wife and her lover conspire to kill the husband and appear to have achieved their goal, but are forced to separate to avoid suspicion . . .

However, in the fractured narrative which presents these events in the early part of the film, the themes that seem to have been Chabrol’s preoccupation are schematized to such a degree that they almost become grotesque. Questions concerning motivation or the moral nature of the enterprise do not belong, and we are left with what might seem to be a disinterested presentation of a slick, soft-core job.

Nevertheless, if we have been anticipating that Chabrol is working according to an old formula — whether it be born of films of the ilk of The Postman Always Rings Twice, or Double Indemnity, or of his own earlier work — then we are soon to find that we have been deceived, and the subsequent manipulations of conventional audience expectations dis­ play an abrasive wit that one has sensed always to have been there in Chabrol’s films, but rarely before so clearly foregrounded (except, I am told, in La Decade Prodigieuse).

In fact, the major motif which runs through the film is that of manipulation, not only in the terms of the creative process, but also as a basis for the way the characters relate to each other. Primarily, it provides a perspective on the film’s central character, the wife, Julie Wormser (Romy Schneider), who, while she remains psychologically elusive, is nonetheless clearly sketched as the victim of the manipulation of all the men around her — husband, lover, lawyer, magistrate, policemen.

Initially, she seems to be directing the course of events, seducing the lover, Jeff Marie (Paolo Giusti); with her open eroticism, plying her husband, Louis (Rod Steiger), with drink in order to free herself of

his presence; and then carrying out the “ex­ mance). The direction of the camera move­ ecution” . She seems to be the summation of ment is only reversed when she is surrounded the femme fatale figure of countless films by male figures — the unsavoury comic noirs, until, with the reappearance of her policemen who interrogate her, the lawyer husband, we recognize that there has been and the magistrate who discuss her part in much which has occurred outside her con­ the assumed murder — and, again, trapped. sciousness.

Of course, Chabrol is not the first male As if to stress her isolation, no other director to have treated the problem of being women appear in the film. She is alone, both a woman in a world defined by a male in her ventures into the outside world and in system. In their own ways, Bergman, her luxurious San Tropez villa, which is fill­ Fassbinder, Kluge and Truffaut, among ed with elaborate decor, but bare of anything other contemporary directors, are similarly which might be at all personally meaningful concerned, and one should not neglect the to her. She is Woman, largely the creation of Hollywood melodramas and comedies by Man. If she is anything more than this, it such directors as Ophuls, von Sternberg, remains a mystery, something which neither Sirk, Cukor, Goulding and Borzage. Nor she nor we can find, for when she discovers should the fact that I have chosen to con­ herself freed of the men at the end, she carr centrate primarily on a single feature of this only turn towards the darkness. film be allowed to obscure an elaborate and As Chabrol has pointed out, his film is complex structure which requires a con­ sideration of a much greater length: tracing about the physiologic feminine and about his character’s regression from the sexual­ the parody of the whodunits (it turns out object preyed upon by the lover in the that nobody did); exploring the notion of opening, to the figure in foetal position “the games people play” (strangely, Michael alone on the white couch at the end, before Walker used the Eric Berne book as a basis she stands up and walks out into the night, for his analysis of late Chabrol in Movie 20, to find Chabrol, several films later, towards the flashing light of the nearby light-house, and, literally, out of existence. employing the same reference); and un­ derlining Chabrol’s use of the features of The absence of Man has destroyed her, his film noir to express the innocence of his creation. When her lawyer, Albert Legal (Jean Rochefort, in a delightfully smarmy married couple as they are, therapeutically, performance), defines her predicament dur­ drawn towards a recognition of the darker ing their last meeting — “ It’s a man’s side of their passions. world” — he is referring to the way legal justice is administered, but his words carry INNOCENTS WITH DIRTY HANDS (LES the overtones of far more serious im­ INNOCENTS AUX MAINS SALES). Directed plications.

by Claude Chabrol. Distributed by Twentieth On a second viewing of the film, it Century-Fox. Produced by Andre Genoves. becomes clear that Chabrol’s style has dic­ Screenplay by Claude Chabrol. Based on the novel The D a m n e d I n n o c e n ts by Richard Neely. Produc­ tated from the start that Julie is the prisoner tion Company, Les Films la Boetie (Paris)/Terra of her feminality. Jeff is introduced via his Film kunst (W est B e rlin j/Ju p p ite r G eneral hawk-like kite which falls on her as she sun­ C i n e m a t o g r a f i c a ( R o m e ) . D i r e c t o r o f Photography, Jean Rabier. Edited by Jacques bathes naked in her serene surroundings, and subsequently throughout the film, Chabrol is Gaillard. Music by Pierre Jansen. Art Direction by Guy Littaye. Sound by Guy Chichignoud. Players: constantly zooming or tracking in on her, Romy Schneider, Rod Steiger, Paolo Giusti, Jean helpless in her enforced passivity against the Rochefort, Francois Maistre, Pierre Santini, Fran­ external forces encroaching upon her (a cois Perrot, Hans C. Blech. Eastmancolor. Length 125 min. France/West G erm any/Italy. 1975. feature underlined by Romy Schneider’s nicely controlled, expressionless perfor­

Julie Wormser (Romy Schneider) and her lover, Jeff Marie (Paolo Giusti), before the ‘murder’ of Julie’s husband, Louis. Innocents With Dirty Hands.

Albert Legal, a delightfully smarmy performance by Jean Roche­ fort, confers with his client. Innocents With Dirty Hands.

The prisoner of her feminality — Julie sunbakes in her serene gar­ den prior to Jeffs hawk-like kite landing on her naked bottom.

Innocents With Dirty Hands.

The uneasy triangle: Jeff Marie, Julie, and Louis Wormser (Rod Steiger). Innocents With Dirty Hands.

The dead refuse to stay dead, and the chance for happiness is recognized too late. Innocents With Dirty Hands.

Julie, helpless in her enforced passivity against the external forces encroaching upon her, is interrogated by the police. Innocents With Dirty Hands.

Cinema Papers, June-July — 77

Take an ordinary man, C A SE Y , living in a modem Australian city, deserted by his wife, supporting a young son, SEAN and following a grey, cyclic existence. Tell him one day, that his son is going to di e. . . and standby. After the first shock and bewilderment wear off, he endeavours to make the last months of his son's life as fulfilling as possible . . . but his own life is never to be the same again.

C A S E Y is plunged into a whole series of confrontations both at a personal level, including a short reunion with his wayward wife and with the authorities.

Confrontations that he is ill-equipped to handle. Every situation he faces, and some of them are not without humour, is complicated by his refusal to reveal the reason for his erratic and stubborn behaviour.

He will not— he cannot share his anguish. ^THE FOURTH WISH J m of a dying boy but of a man, who in looking l i f e into the valley of his r a n r n m i son's imminent death, STARRING John Meillon, Robert Betties discovers a well-spring Robyn Nevin and introducing ‘Roger’ Producer: John Morris. of strength and a capacity for action Associate Producers: Matt Carroll, Jill C. Robbthat may, just possibly, be the ultimate Director: Don Chaffey.

Screenplay: Michael Craig. salvation of them. both. \^/ South Australian Film Corporation Produced by the

For Australian release July 1976

T H E B R IT IS H TR A C K

SOUND­

Ivan Hutchinson Just as British screen actors and actresses seem closer to the legitimate stage than their U.S. counterparts, so British composers of film music seem closer to the concert hall than the Americans.

Although both statements are arguable, and indeed things have changed considerably over the last few years, it remains true that composers in Britain, such as Arnold Bax, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughn Williams, William Walton and Arthur Bliss, have been able to write for films without any noticeable diminution in their status as serious com­ posers.

This was certainly not true of the situation in the U.S. where writing for films was regarded as something done by composers incapable of writing important or serious works, and by those more interested in money than anything else. One has to delve carefully into American film credits of the past to find listed there any score by a major American composer.

Aaron Copland, Virgil Thompson and Leonard Bernstein are names that spring to mind but only because everybody else is giving concerts at Carnegie Hall, or other groves of musical academe, instead of fleshpotting over on the West Coast. It seems, on the whole, that most of the refugees from Europe in the 30s settled happily in Califor­ nia, writing their money-making fare (now eagerly sought after and recorded), leaving the native American composers, in the main, working on the East Coast and elsewhere, admired by the cognoscenti and generally earning little but praise in the columns of musical America.

A detailed study of British film music is, generally speaking, extremely difficult, un­ less one has happened to record soundtracks on tape or cassette — an illegal ploy happily ignored by many, but not myself, the world over. The only trouble is that the major British films of the 30s to 50s are getting rarer on television, and, also, the sound quality of British films is distinctly inferior to that of American films. What one has to go on, in the main, is a vague memory of those major films which had worthy scores, and the occasional recordings on 78’s and those l.p.’s issued later by the record com­ panies.

Classical composers have, of course, written for films from the earliest days.

Saint-Saëns, as long ago as 1908, composed original music for the French film The Assassination of the Due De Guise, and Masengni Milhaud and Ippolitov-Ivanov were among others whose film scores, played by orchestras at only the most deluxe cinemas, have now been forgotten and lost — although musicians, being thrifty, tend to use their scores in other compositions. The music Prokofiev wrote for Alexander Nevsky in 1928 is still well-known in concert-halls and on recordings, but very lit­ tle of the early period of sound films, to say nothing of the silent era, is known to the public.

Possibly the earliest British sound film for which the music is still remembered and played, is the Arthur Bliss score for Things to Come, produced by Korda in 1935. The composer, first approached by Wells (who had heard Bliss lecture on music), worked

Ralph Sm art’s Bitter Springs (1950) for which Ralph Vaughn Williams, in collaboration with Ernest Ir­ ving, wrote the score. Charles Tingwell (left), Chips Rafferty, uncredited actor, and Gordon Jackson.

closely with William Cameron Menzies and Korda’s musical director (the youthful but brilliant Muir Matheson about whom someone should write a book) and wrote a work which added tremendously to the effec­ tiveness of Wells’ view of mankind’s possible future. The music, accompanying scenes ranging from the bombing of London and the destruction of civilization, to the visionary grandeur of man, the conqueror of space, needed an imaginative musical genius to do it justice, and Bliss provided the film with a score of great strength and lasting value. Fortunately, Bliss incorporated some of this music in his ballet suite Checkmate, thus ensuring its survival in some form.

Other British composers were also work­ ing on films in that year. Benjamin Britten was doing some experimental work on British documentaries with John Grierson and Basil Wright in films like Coalface and Night Mail. Arthur Benjamin had written a score for The Turn of the Tide (1935) and William Walton for two Elizabeth Bergner films, Escape Me Never (1935) and As You Like It (1936) — his first music for filmed Shakespeare, a field he was to make par­ ticularly his own in the three Olivier produc­ tions.

Little of this music caught the attention of the public, and little of it found its way onto the records. Certainly, at this period, nothing that a young British composer called Richard Addinsell created for the movies caused much of a stir, which is not to say that his music warranted such disinterest or that it lacked great talent — as his disparate scores for Fire Over England (1937 and Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939) clearly show. Yet he, more than any other British composer writing for films, was responsible for giving British film music a tremendous boost with the public, when he wrote, in 1941, a quasi-concerto (more a rhapsody); for piano and orchestra, for the minor wartime film with A nton W a lb ro o k , Dangerous Moonlight (U.S.: Suicide Squadron).

This piece, of dubious merit, caught the ear of the public, and the Warsaw Concerto, as the publishers called it, became a favorite piece of “classical” music. Its strength lay in its clever dissection and re-use, in potted form, of those aspects of the great popular piano concertos by Tchaikovsky, Greig and Rachmaninov that were most admired —

grandiose chords from the pianist, lush melodies from the strings — while its runn­ ing time catered for those unable to endure a genuine, three movement concerto.

Whatever else one can say about this piece, three things are certain: it brought British film music to the fore: it spawned a host of inferior imitations (some of which, like Bath’s Cornish Rhapsody from the 1944 Love Story and Charles Williams’ theme, Jealous Lover, from the 1948 While I Live, became very popular); and it gave Addinsell the reputation of being a less subtle com­ poser than he actually was.

The 1940s and early 1950s brought British films and film music to heights they had never reached before and were rarely to do again. Major films inspired musicians to do great scores. At the invitation of Muir Matheson, Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his first film score for the superb 49th Parallel (1941). Williams was 70 at the time, but he was to write music for eight films in all, including The Lives of Joanna Godden and Scott of the Antarctic (1948). Many of his major themes were subsequently incor­ porated into his later symphonic works.

Scott of the Antarctic has surely one of the most impressive of all British film scores.

Williams, along with Ernest Irving, collaborated on the score for the Australian film, Bitter Springs (1950), but it was another Australian-set film which encourag­ ed British composer, John Ireland, to provide one of the most stirring and attrac­ tive scores written in the 40s. His music for The Overlanders (1946) was his only film score, but it perfectly accompanied the vivid images and spirited story line of this Harry Watt film.

William Alwyn was a prolific composer for British movies, and unlike most of the composers covered in this survey, is best known for his film scores. This is primarily because he was associated with Carol Reed in three of the best films that director ever made: The Way Ahead (1943), Odd Man Out (1946) and The Fallen Idol (1948). His music for other films, especially the extremely at­ mospheric The Rocking Horse Winner (1949) and witty History of Mr Polly (1948), should, along with the scores for Reed, find their way on to disc — they are too good to be allowed to languish, forgotten, with the films themselves.

But it is undoubtedly the music of William Walton which matches most closely the achievements of the best Hollywood-based film composers, even though his output for films is small compared to the incredibly prolific Korngold and Steiner. Walton’s scores for The First of the Few (1942) — his busiest year, with four films in all — Henry V (1945), Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1956) were imaginative and exciting, always adding to the visuals, never detracting. They are among the finest ever written. Happily, they are well represented on disc and still re­ main the high point of British film music.

Films from Britain have markedly declined in quality and quantity since the halcyon days of the 40s and early 50s, and the introduction of jazz elements into scores in both the U.S. and Britain brought new composers onto the scene, in many cases far inferior ones — though certainly better known. There are few British film com­ posers writing today, whose work, well represented on disc, stands up to repeated hearing.

John Barry has become one of the most prolific scorers since the early 60s. The enor­ mous commercial success of the James Bond film rubbed off on him, and this former jazz­ man found himself much in demand. Very little of his writing, however, strikes this listener as worthy of representation of disc.

Ron Goodwin, whose films include some very big ones — like The Battle of Britain (1969) where his score replaced Walton’s, which says a lot about the musical tastes of the producer — writes ponderous music of little subtlety; while Ron Grainer’s music, for films as different as A Kind of Loving (1952) and The Omega Man (1971), seems to have little life of its own away from the images it originally accompanied.

Malcolm Arnold, writing from the late 40s but in great demand after his use of a marching tune in Bridge of The River Kwai (1957) , wrote what sounded like the same music for film after film in the 60s and has been less in demand of late. Nevertheless, he did continue the tradition of classically trained composers working on British films.

The two most interesting writers today are John Addison and Richard Rodney Bennett, both men being capable of writing excellent music for any and every emotion — though Addison is more successful at comedy than drama. His scores for Tom Jones (1963), The Torn Curtain (1966), The Honey Pot (1967) and Sleuth (1972) show his love of pastiche and parody, and his tendency towards a chamber-music style of writing.

Bennett, writing for films since the mid50s, has come into his own since Far From the Madding Crowd (1967). He has written scores in the grand manner, such as Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) and Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), but can also turn in a witty, apposite pastiche, as he did for Murder on the Orient Express (1975).

Much of the music written for films today gets recorded. With few exceptions, however, the great period of British film music remains in the vaults. The late Ber­ nard Hermann has recorded (on London SPC21149) some music from this period (including Bliss’s Things to Come, Walton’s Escape Me Never and Lambert’s Anna Karenina), and it is to be hoped someone else will carry on his work in this field. There is much good music here which deserves a life away from celluloid. Some of this music was available long ago on 78’s — in this day and age, it should be possible for it to be heard on l.p.’s. ★ Cinema Papers, June-July — 79

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Since 1971, the Perth International Film Festival has screened over one hundred feature films to uniquely receptive audiences in the West. Most of the films presented had their Australian or World premieres.

They included: Women Under the Influence (Cassavetes); Black Moon (Malle); Pastoral Hide and Seek (Terayama); Hearts and Minds (Davis); Everyman for Himself and God Against All (The Enigma of Kasper Hauser) (Herzog); Winstanley (Brownlow); Steppenwolf (Haines); Touch of Zen (King Hu); Days of 36 (Angelopoulous); 27A (Storm); Uber Nacht (Thome); Pratidwandi (Ray); The Mother and the Whore (Eustache); Page of Madness (Kinugesa); Throw Away Your Books, Let’s Go Into the Streets (Terayama); Minamata (Tsuchimoto); Dalmas (Deling); State of Seige (Costa-Gavras); Solaris (Tarkovsky); Viva La Muerte (Arrabel); Aguirre, The Wrath of God (Herzog); Merchant of Four Seasons (Fass­ binder); Between Wars (Thornhill); Death of the Flea Circus Director (Koerfer); The Hour of Liberation Has Come (Srour); Blood of the Condor (Sanjines); I F. Stone’s Weekly (Bruck); Idi Amin Dada (Schroeder); Badlands (Mallek); L’Extradition (Von Gunten); History Lessons (Straub) and 90 others ....

The F ifth Perth Film Festival will be held at The Windsor Cinema, Nedlands, Perth, W.A. from August 13-26. Contact: Perth International Film Festival, P.O. Box 149, South Perth 6151, Western Australia.

Telephone: 618148.

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR THE 1976 AUSTRALIAN CINEMATOGRAPHERS SOCIETY AWARDS The Australian Cinematographers’ Society recently called for nomina­ tions for their annual awards and the prestigious “ M illi" award for the Australian Cinematographer of 1976.

Commenced in 1970, many of Australia’s top cinematographers have won the coveted “ Milli” award for professional skills and technical exper­ tise in cinematography.

Mr Paul Onorato, the federal presi­ dent of the Australian Cinemato­ graphers’ Society (ACS), and the 1974 “ Milli” award winner, said that the an­ nual award was gaining new meaning with the enormous interest shown by the Australian Government and the public in the Australian film and cinema business.

"The awards are given to Australian cinematographers, who are members of the ACS, for excellence in cinemato­ graphy in the following categories: feature films; television drama series; dram atized and non-dram atized documentary films; fiction drama (under 60 minutes); current affairs; newsreels; commercials for cinema and television; experimental films and specialized cinematography", Mr Onorato said. “ Golden Tripod” awards are made in each category and the “ Milli” award to the Cinematographer of the Year chosen from the eleven sectional winners.

Last year, the “ Milli” was awarded to Russell Boyd for his work on the featurè film Between Wars. The film was directed by Michael Thornhill and featured Corin Redgrave, Gunter Meissner, Judy Morris and Patricia Leahy.

Entry forms were forwarded to all ACS members in all states and ad­ ditional forms were made available from state branches. Entries closed on May 14.

The screening of the award-winning films and the presentation ceremony was held at the Macquarie University Theatre, Macquarie University, North Ryde, on May 27.

For fu rth e r inform ation please contact: Rex Davies 922 1622; Michael Robertson 9221622.

FILM EDITORS’ GUILD OF AUSTRALIA The object of the Guild is to ensure that the true value of film and sound editing is recognized — not only by those engaged in it, but by the whole of the film industry — as an important part of the creative and artistic aspect of film production.

Membership of the Guild has been limited to senior and junior editors currently engaged In film editing; with an associate membership covering a large cross-section of people working in other sections of the film industry.

Basically, it is an Editors’ guild and con­ trol will always rest in the hands of those senior in the industry.

The Guild meets once a month, and meetings are designed to inform and stimulate interest. Visitors address the Guild on many aspects of film produc­ tion; producers/directors present their new films and answer questions; Guild members visit the various laboratories, production houses, Film Australia, The Film and Television School, television channels; etc. Therefore the ex­ perience of members is widened beyond the limitations of their “at work” set-up.

Members of our craft are invited to join us, and if you are interstate, or in the country, join us as "country” members. We also put out a newsletter and can help you organize, or re­ vitalize your own local Film Editors’ Guild.

We are interested in hearing about you and your activities, so drop us a line to: The Secretary, NSW branch Film Editors’ Guild of Australia, P.O. Box 195 Roseville, NSW 2069.

MELBOURNE FILMMAKERS’ CO-OPERATIVE LIMITED On Monday, March 15, a general meeting was held at the Melbourne Filmmakers’ Co-operative, and three new staff members were chosen: co­ managers, Marek Zayler and George Stam koski, and prom otions co­ ordinator, Zena Lester.

The new staff feels that the Co-op needs revitalizing. The membership consists of people who have been with the Co-op since its beginning. It now needs new energy through an infusion of new faces and greater enthusiasm.

The Co-op is pursuing several avenues to achieve this end, including a wide-ranging publicity campaign now being launched at all film education centres — Rusden College, Melbourne State College, Swinburne, Prahran Tech, etc. These centres have a pool of film students who, if made aware of what the Co-op has to offer, would be willing to utilize its resources. Plans are also being made to hold a students’ film festival in August or September.

Monday nights, once only for members, have now been styled “open" nights. All are welcome to view their own films or those brought by others. The Co-op may also roadshow films from their library. So far, Warburton and Geelong are among the places which have shown interest in this.

Programming is undergoing drastic^ changes. The 8 p.m. sessions will run for two weeks, with an option for a further two weeks. The 10 p.m. sessions will be used for experimen­ tation, and it is planned to screen a mixture of classics, underground films from overseas, and topical produc­ tions.

The Co-op is continuing as an active distribution centre and there will be an all-out drive for new prints to supple­ ment the library. The Australia-wide catalogue helps the Co-op to distribute the films nationally. The Melbourne Co­ op is a vital part of this system.

There are also moves to set up con­ tacts with overseas Co-ops and film distribution centres towards maintain­ ing a regular exchange of films and in­ formation. The Canadian Film Distribu­ tion Centre has already shown interest in some sort of arrangement.

The Co-op is faced with an uncertain future as it is subject to government decisions regarding Arts funding.

However, everyone concerned with the Co-op is determined that it shall con­ tinue to exist. It is vitally important to the growth of Australian film culture. It cannot be allowed to die.

N A T I O N A L LI BRARY AUSTRALIA FILM ARCHIVE

The original negative of The Ad­ ventures of Barry MacKenzie has been received on deposit and will be retain­ ed as the preservation copy of this im­ portant Australian feature. Com­ plementing the film is a range of stills and publicity material, now lodged in the documentation collection, though a tube of Foster’s is not included.

Through the co-operation of two Adelaide enthusiasts, Ron Praite and Vic Reeve, some precious clips of the 1906 drama, The Story of the Kelly Gang, have come to light. Barely three feet in length, the clips are the only known footage to survive from Aus­ tralia’s (and probably the world’s) first feature film — a VA hour epic that returned considerable profits to its far­ sighted producers. Appropriately, the find was made on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Australian feature film, and the footage will be included in the A B C ’s c o m m e m o ra tiv e documentary, Sunshine and Sha­ dows, later this year.

By June, the gigantic four-year task of copying the pre-1950 output of Cinesound Review and Movietown News will have been completed, involving some 2000 weekly newsreel issues, equivalent to two million feet of 35mm film. Sorting the material and render­ ing it accessible to researchers is a task that remains to be completed. The archive is seeking prints of early issues

phone: (03) 94 4883

FILM STUDY COLLECTION in the last quarter, additions to the Film Study collection have con­ centrated on British cinema. These in­ cluded two important Ealing comedies: Alexander Mackendrich’s Whisky Gal­ ore (1948) and Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949); the war drama The Dam Busters (1955) and Carol Reed’s important ‘realist’ film The Stars Look Down (1939).

Other notable titles include Anthony Asquith's The Winslow Boy (1948), Carol Reed’s The Fallen Idol (1948), David Lean’s The Sound Barrier (1951), Alexander M ackendrich’s Mandy (1952), and two war films by Charles Frend, San Demetrio, London (1943) and The Cruel Sea (1953).

M auritz S tille r’s Scandinavian classic, Sir Arne’s Treasure (1919) has come from Svensk Filmindustri, and is a cinema milestone long unavailable in Australia. From Hungarofilm, Istvan Szabo's feature, The Age of Day Dreaming (1956), and a short animated film, Double Portrait (1965).

The early work of animator and ar­ tist, Hans Richter, is represented by: In­ flation (1928), Everything Turns, Every­ thing Revolves (1929), Symphony (1928), Twopence Magic (1930), Film­ studie (1925), as well as his first film ex­ periment, Rhythm 21 (1912).

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, a first feature from the German Democratic Republic, has been added to the collec­ tion. Other titles will follow shortly.

Four Australian titles deserve special mention: two experimental shorts, Arthur and Corinne Cantrill’s Blast and Steve Knapman’s Bicycle, and two feature film s, Into the Straight (McCreadie Bros, 1948) and A Son is Born (Eric Porter, 1946). Both features were starring vehicles for Muriel Steinbeck, and the latter also featured Ron Randell and Peter Finch.

Bookings are now open on all these titles to film societies and tertiary courses who register with the Library.

ASSOCIATION FOR A NATIONAL FILM AND TELEVISION ARCHIVE Readers might recall the passing mention in our last Cinema Papers column to the effect that: “ No tears are shed today for the loss of The True Story of the Kelly Gang, produced 70 years ago”. Apart from making a slight factual alteration to delete “True” from the title (“True” would be included, probably with less justification, in the ti­ tle of the 1920 version), we can now report that today few tears need be shed for the film ’s complete loss.

Continued on P 83.

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COMING SCREENINGS

CONTEMPORARY POLISH CINEMA — a selection THE FILMS OF FREDERICK WISEMAN KENJI MIZOGUCHI — his two colour film s Shin Heike Monogafari and Princess Yang Kwei Fei. The great Japanese d ire ctor has been described as “ a suprem e colourist of the cinem a” .

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Am erican Classics of 20’s and 3Q’s; Films by Fellini and Antonioni; C ontem porary French Cinema.

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B ecom e a s u b s c rib e r now. C om ing screenings advertised weekly (generally Saturdays) in newspapers indicated:

SYDNEY: Box 1780, GPO Sydney 2001 (S. M . H e r a l d ) MELBOURNE: 50 Bennett Pde, E. Kew 3102 {T h e A g e ) BRISBANE: Box 2341, GPO Bris. 4001 (C o u r i e r M a il ) CANBERRA: 28 Feakes PI. Campbell 2601 (C a n b e r r a T im e s ) PERTH: 92 Adelaide St. Fremantle 6160 {T h e W e s t A u s t .)

COLUMNS

Column» Continued from P 81.

Within weeks of the last column going to press, small fragments of this, the world’s first feature film, had come to light in Adelaide.

The discovery was made by Ron Praite, a friend of an Adelaide private collector, Vic Reeve, who had un­ suspectingly inherited the fragments as part of an acquisition some years ago.

Checking the contents of a seemingly insignificant can, Praite had found five short pieces of film trimmed from a silent 35 mm release print.

At least two of the trims contained a mid-shot of a familiar figure — Dan Kel­ ly — whose awesome size had staggered audiences during the first popular run of The Story of the Kelly Gang in 1906. A similar publicity photograph has appeared many times over the intervening years, and it was this link between the two shots which led Praite to realize the importance of his find.

The clips were sent to the Film Divi­ sion of the National Library in Canberra, and after further verification they were duped at Colorfilm’s Sydney lab. They were then optically printed for inclusion in the ABC’s history of the Australian cinema, Sunshine and Shadows (which will go to air in Sydney on July 21). ' Each trim runs to an average of eight frames, and these, ironically, are all that survive of a film that once ran to a revolutionary length of 4000 ft. The fragments, as recently printed with black spacing between each shot, give the illusion of the past eerily recalled through the device of somebody slowly closing their eyes and opening them to discontinuous action. In the first two, the helmeted Dan Kelly brandishes a pistol in each hand; then in wide shot, Ned Kelly stumbles towards two troopers.

A further shot, from much the same viewpoint, has a trooper firing to hit Kelly, who is jolted by the impact. There is a brief medium-wide shot of Kelly struggling with his captors, and that is all till the sections are repeated, slightly slowed down by step-printing in the laboratory. ' In spite of their 70 years of age, the sections are in remarkably good con­ dition. They were probably preserved by a projectionist or collector who had access to an extremely worn print.

Generously for an Australian film of the time, there were at least 10 prints made of The Story of the Kelly Gang, one eventually being sent to Britain.

However, this disappeared by the 1930s, along with all other known copies of the film.

During the twenties it was rumoured that one of the film’s co-producers (William Gibson, by that time managing director of Union Theatres) was using a can of the film as a desk ornament. But since then all inquiry, in this and other directions, has failed to yield a com­ plete print.

The discovery of the fragments today is an isolated, almost freakish, stroke of luck. Disposal or deterioration has claimed most of Australian films lost after The Story of the Kelly Gang. But there are still many unexplored avenues in determining what lies intact and undiscovered. Today, there is no guarantee of amnesty to private collec­ tors who fear prosecution by copyright holders. And no less importantly, finan­ cial reimbursement to a collector is rare.

If readers of this column would like to hear of other discoveries, and of the current state of film archives in Australia, they are invited to subscribe to the Association’s Newsletter. This may be obtained by writing to the Association’s secretary, P.O. Box 137, Gordon, NSW 2072.

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James Mason’s finest hour: a ‘chamber work’ directed by James Ivory and written by prize-winning Indian novelist Ruth Jhabvala. An Indian Rajah’s glorious past is recalled by his exiled daughter (Madhur Jaffrey) and his ageing tutor (Mason), in­ terspersed with old home movies from the Rajah’s archives.

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any way with an application, withdrew from that full Commission meeting as was recorded in the minutes.

3. That contingency was allocated before production commenced and not when the film went over budget.

Dear Sir, 4. For the record, the film is $7000 over I wish to firmly correct your cor­ budget and not $25,000. respondent’s item in The Quarter item, Now that we have that straight, and it “After the Honeymoon", page 297 of your wouldn’t have taken much trouble for March-April issue, and to express a view your correspondent to get it straight in re the position and role of the part-time the first place, let’s get to the contentious commissioners to the Australian Film question of part-time commissioners.

Commission. I really get annoyed when One of the greatest criticisms from the unnamed writers in journals (particularly industry and myself of the AFDC was that yours) express views that are not only its board was not part of the industry, factually wrong, but can only be in­ (there was no one from the commercial terpreted as malicious slander. industry on the board), and it failed to un­ Anyway, to the facts: derstand the problems of the industry 1. The AFDC invested $125,000 initially and its filmmakers. (By the term “ in­ in Caddie on October 4, 1974 and dustry” , i include all sectors from the subsequently increased their invest­ Australian Film Council, the Film Produc­ ment to $250,000 in March 1975, two tion Association, the Co-op and the months before the Australian Film smaller guilds).

Commission was a reality and my ap­ When the bill for an Australian Film pointment to it.

Commission went before Parliament, the 2. After the Commission took over the. industry lobbied heavily for film people control of the AFDC contracts, a $25,­ actively involved in the industry to be ap­ 000 contingency was allocated to the pointed to it. This was subsequently picture at the request of our other in­ done, although it’s no secret that the pre­ vestors. I, as is customary with any sent part-time commissioners were not part-time commissioners involved in the first list placed before Cabinet. Once

again, the industry had lobbied against those who were rumoured to form the Commission and the industry won.

I was told on my appointment that I was selected for not only being a professional filmmaker, but having come from the grass-roots, would be able to represent that aspect of the industry. Jill Robb was the appointee for South Australia, Graham Burke for Victoria, Frank Gardiner for Queensland and myself for New South Wales. At long last industry people were there to advise on their own industry.

At the very first meeting of the Com­ mission, all our pecuniary interests (if any) were recorded in the minutes of that meeting. Where any application may in­ volve a part-time commissioner, no matter how remotely, he or she either not attends the Commission meeting, or totally withdraws from that Commission meeting while that application is dis­ cussed.

Obviously this system could be open to abuse in the form of soliciting, lobby­ ing and whatever pressures you care to name. However, if the integrity and c re d ib ility of the part-tim e com ­ missioners is under question, then the in­ dustry should loudly say so, but don’t enter into a whispering smear campaign

touted in your column.

Remember the p a rt-tim e com ­ missioners are there to represent the in­ dustry which means you. We are here to listen and present your point of view to the Commission, so use us. if the in­ dustry feels that the part-time com­ missioners should come from another quarter, then say so, but be warned — don't opt for a soulless bureaucratic board that has no involvement with a complex and idiosyncratic industry. I don’t deny that there shouldn’t be perhaps another method of selecting the part-time commissioners, such as the way in which the ABC staff votes for one of its commissioners.

Bui let me reassure you that in the time i have been a part-time commissioner, and I have attended all full commission meetings to date, there has not been any impropriety of any kind from any of the commissioners. I also wish to say that at no time are the part-time commissioners, at our request, involved in the private details of applicants’ submissions and budgets, so that the applicant who may be a fellow producer can have full con­ fidentiality with the full Commission and its officers.

Yours sincerely, Anthony Buckley

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MILOS FORMAN

Milos Forman Continued from P.14 Look, painters are painting the same subject a hundred times — it’s normal. When I was making Audi­ tion in Czechoslovakia, I didn’t know that it would turn out to be such a fascinating scene in a film. I was doing it with a wild 16mm. c a m e ra , w ith my own tap e recorder. I told myself: “Jesus Christ, if I only had professional equipment! I would love to do this kind of scene well.” Suddenly, I had that chance.

Do you ever feel misunderstood? I don’t just mean because of language. . .

Sometimes you feel misunder­ stood in a hurting way, sometimes in a very flattering way. We had a big premiere of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the Kennedy Centre in Washington. It was a charity evening to help provide scholarships for the students of different religions. There were a lot of priests in the audience and after the film it was unbelievable, because they came up to me saying they were sure I was a deeply religious man, and that the film was the greatest religious film ever made. Well I was baptized a Protestant, never attended church, and I don’t consider myself a religious man. If I believe there is something beyond our understan­ ding, then that’s a different story, but I am definitely not a religious man.

They also explained to me that the panel the Indian moves was a tombstone, and that the water was the water of life coming out and awakening the patients. Well, you see, that’s a misunderstanding in a very flattering way.

That’s a beautiful scene — it’s like the rock being rolled away from the tomb and Christ arisen . . .

Yes, that was the resurrection of MacMurphy.

He went to Heaven . . .

Yes. Do you rehearse your actors before shooting starts?

Oh yes. We had one week of rehearsals where we blocked out the major and difficult scenes. I also spent that time giving the actors a chance to see the patients.

Are there any actual patients in the film?

Yes. If you remember that scene when they take Jack, the Indian and Cheswick to electro-shock therapy, all those people in the cor­ ridor were real patients.

the actor: “ Follow this guy and look at him. Observe him — the way he walks, talks and reacts, the way he behaves, the way his illness shows.”

Three of your films have been shot

by Miroslav Ondricek . . .

Do you find electro-shock therapy terrifying?

Well, we had a great thing going.

We were friends before we started working together, and that always Yes I do, but I also believe what helps. doctors told me; because several In 1961, I bought a 16mm. doctors, even very progressive ones, camera and started my first short told me that shock therapy is the film, Competition, shooting it only way — the only way — in cer­ myself. Two of my friends were tain cases of severe, manic running a small musical theatre in depression, to improve the state of Prague and I was doing a film the patient. about it so they could have something to look at when they Did you and Jack Nicholson see were 80 years-old. someone who had been lobotomized?

Miroslav was a friend, and I call­ ed him in on the film because I Yes. There were some people in didn’t understand the camera at all. the hospital who were lobotomized. We had terrible fights because he was the young enthusiast and we both wanted to be cameraman. I For similar reasons? had to scream at him: “ It’s my Well, lobotomy is an operation camera. I spent the last of my where they cut off the frontal lobe money on it.” from the rest of the brain. It was Did you encounter any union used to help quell the most violent cases. You have patients where you problems when you decided to use don’t have any choice. Either this him on “Taking O ff’? man or woman has to spend the rest In the beginning, the unions were of his or her life behind bars — not only on the ward, but behind bars very rigid but then, for reasons — because they were liable, at any which escape me, they became very moment, to go after the throat of co-operative. I had an arrangement another patient. So they are either whereby they would let him come in put behind bars, or lobotomized if I hired an American cameraman as a director of photography. I and hence vegetables. didn’t have to hire a camera But then he doesn’t know he is operator, so I had two directors of free. He doesn’t know what it’s like photography and a focus assistant. not to be behind bars. I mean, they I hired a young guy from New can lobotomize him and put him York to be the second director of behind bars and it won’t make any photography, and both Miroslav and he operated the camera and did difference to him . . . the lighting. It was a perfect Well, I am not a judge. Don’t ask arrangement. me to judge what’s better. Today it’s a bit different. There are still Why did you use t hree lobotomies done; not with the cameramen on “One Flew Over the knife, but with laser beams. There Cuckoo’s Nest”? are fewer done, however, because the drugs are now so powerful that Well, originally I wanted the cases where drugs won’t work Ondricek but he couldn’t get per­ are more and more scarce. mission to leave Czechoslovakia, because of me, I think. So I started Some actors like Vincent with Haskell Wexler, who is a Schiavelli, whom you used in “Tak­ brilliant cameraman, but we ran ing O ff’, give incredible perfor­ into problems because he is a mances in “Cuckoo’s Nest”. How perfectionist. And if you give a did you get these performances? cameraman 100 per cent freedom, he will exchange the actors for Well, I took every actor upstairs puppets because they are less likely in the ward and pointed to a patient to disturb the lighting. Well, as a whom I had chosen before, and told director, I am the opposite extreme.

phone: (03) 94 4883 86 — Cinema Papers, June-July

Wasn’t the problem that Wexler was behaving like a director, rather than a cameraman?

No, he was not. That’s not true.

Every cameraman has his own ideas, which sometimes overlap with the director’s, and that is good because it feeds me; helps me, provokes me. The problem with Haskell was that he felt we were only using 30 per cent of his capacity. He went very sour about that. Apparently, he had the same problems with Francis Coppola on the Conversation.

I heard you are planning a film called “Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe”. Is that still on?

Yes, but it’s in the very early stages. Everything depends on how the screenplay develops, and how circumstances change. It’s still very vague.* Would you ever direct a horror film or science fiction film if you lik­ ed the script?

I don’t consider style or genre, I consider stories. If the story is great . . .

Finally, are you aware of how much you have influenced film­ makers around the world? For ex­ ample, many of the young directors coming out of the Swedish Film School are making Milos Forman films . . .

That’s wonderful, but I am not aware of it. It makes me feel very happy. ★ * It has since been announced that Forman will direct a film version of the stage musical Hair.

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I would love to get rid of the camera altogether' because the camera is always limiting and in­ timidating the actors in some way.

So obviously we have to make com­ p r o mi s e s ; we had to me e t somewhere in the middle, which we did. But Haskell suffered. These compromises made him unhappy, and the atmosphere on the set grew tense and unpleasant. He then split and I called Bill Butler. We went one week over schedule, however, and he could not finish the shooting because of another commitment. I was very fortunate that Bill Fraker helped me out during that last week.

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CUCKOO’S NEST

Cuckoo’s Nest

Continued from P.15 Perhaps I can focus these remarks by looking at the film’s central relationship, that between MacMurphy and the Chief. At the beginning of the film, the Chief, a gigantic cigar-store Indian figure, is deaf and dumb. Absolutely impassive, but mighty and, because Indian, filled with a kind of primitive menace. There is a sense, even­ tually made explicit, that he doesn’t speak because he is a living monument to the history of conformist oppression in America. MacMurphy is linked to this history and his attempt to awaken the sleeping giant is the central metaphor for the film’s desire for resistance through a return to the primitive and instinctual.

This makes the Chief into something like MacMurphy’s doppleganger, his Id, or his in­ stinctual self personified, the same symbolic role as Frankenstein’s monster. The Chief is both the promise of real resistance (the instincts are wild, gigantic, uncontainable) and the certainty of its failure (the instincts are an escape into the past, into nature, across the border and into death).

Each step MacMurphy takes away from the institution and into the instincts of violence and sex is a step in the Chiefs awakening. The Chiefs compassionate murder of MacMurphy is really the fulfilment of their relationship and is not a premature end brought about by the system. The rebel’s rational self is now lobotomized, his instinctual self fully embodied in another form, which picks him up like a doll and cuddles him to death. The giant is now awake and to underline his origins, tears off the marble tap-base at the roots and smashes it through the window to escape. There is a mighty upsurge from the broken plumbing, a sense of constricted life flowing free again, and enormous hope and fear as the giant lumbers into the dark

freedom of life across the instinctual border.

Death, love and freedom are metaphors for each other in the Cuckoo’s Nest as they all fulfill the film ’s fu n d am en tal desire for the transcendence of consciousness. MacMurphy’s death is pictured as an act of love and as a release. The net of institutionalization has been thrown so wide that conscious life itself has been snared up and rendered degrading. The lobotomy in this scheme of things is merely a step in the right direction.

Not all consciousness is controlled by society, as the filmmaker’s intentions show; but that which is actualized in the forms of contemporary reality is, and the film as a product forces us to see this. The end result is the desperate nihilism and escapism of a decayed tradition fuelled by the desire to overcome that tradition.

Ill The central strength of avant-garde art is its ability to cross cultural barriers and pick and choose from the entire spectrum. To freely use comics and philosophy, technology and im­ agination. It makes itself conscious of the cultural forms it draws on and so transcends them. “ High” art and criticism are conservative in that they use traditional forms of experience and make us feel that these forms are natural and beyond will and action. Hence their focus on intense but static emotional states. Mass art and publicity achieve much the same end by stereotyping the forms of perception and feeling into fantasies and embodying them in objects of consumption. “ High” art and mass art bear witness to a social organization in which human possibilities cannot be realized by the direct transformation of reality in action. Both hive off

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the desire for actualization of the self into a rich, sickly private realm. Like most popular art, One' Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a mixture of these two kinds of art that fails to transform its sources into a new way of knowing and acting. It is not avant-garde.

The high forms of tragedy and comedy often use the Christian idea of the scapegoat to recon­ cile the audience to a social order that is seen to be immoral or contradictory. The great religion tells us there are forms of morality and percep­ tion too intense for the earthly social order.

They are like visitations from another realm that give the lie to the way we have organized things here. Because of this their goodness can be seen as evil and it is the paradoxical nature of this goodness that enables it to carry off our sense of guilt and failure. The death or comic-demise of the scapegoat gives both a sense of loss and release. The best among us has been taken, but the feeling that this is necessary (because, as Macbeth shows, the best is also the worst) recon­ ciles us to the wrongs of the social order (because this “worst” creates our sense of the “ best”).

The mass art tradition of the instinctual which sublimates the Cuckoo’s Nest’s desire to change the system into gratification of sex-violence fan­ tasies is part of the same artistic act that sets MacMurphy up as a scapegoat in the high tradition. His instinctual, comic detachment from the rationalized life of the institution provides us with an enormous sense of release into pure moral space. The worst is the best.

This same detachment of the hero from the social order necessitates his death and our recon­ ciliation to the order. The only change is that we’ve stopped struggling. We’re crying with loss and release and embracing the doctor. This is the meaning of “catharsis” . ★

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AUSTRALIAN WOMEN FILMMAKERS

Australian Women Filmmakers

Continued from P.38 Paulette was determined to use only the best actors: “ I had all these famous Williamson stars. And when I first had them, oh, they were hostile. Because I dared to tell them what to do.

They obviously thought: ‘This slip of a girl, how dare she!’ They were acting their heads off, as if they were on stage. I’d realized from American films that the technique was to underplay everything. That was my belief — restraint. And there were these actors jumping and moving and jerking. They wouldn’t take any notice of me. So I said, ‘all right’, and the next day I showed them their rushes. And they were so shocked. There they were, jumping and leaping about on the screen. They were putty in my hands after that.”

Paulette, suffering the natural insecurity of in­ experience, employed P. J. Ramster to help her with the first film: “God, what a nong that man was! He advertised for people to go to his acting classes. At that stage I was green and trying to find out.”

When Ramster got on the set she was thoroughly disillusioned: “There he was with my script. I was standing by his side, and everything he told them to do was the opposite of everything I’d written. I knew what I wanted them to do, and he’d tell them the wrong thing . . . I just wouldn’t have any more. It was a terrible scene. I told him to get out. I said, ‘I’m directing this film.’ I was learning nothing. I was actually teaching him.”

Ramster may have tried to claim the directing credits, or people started ascribing the films to him (not uncommon when a woman does some­ thing good), because the following item appeared in several newspapers: “We have been asked to state that Mr Ramster had no connec­ tion with the production end of Those Who Love or The Far Paradise, the two McDonagh productions. He was a technical director for the continuity, and under the personal supervision of Paulette McDonagh.”

Those Who Love and The Far Paradise were both highly and intelligently praised in reviews, and both made money, which the girls used for their next productions. But The Cheaters was never distributed. By the time it was completed the talkies had hit Australian cinemas. The girls made an attempt to put sound to a few se­ quences, but with the primitive equipment available it was a failure.

Paulette has remarked that: “The Cheaters was at first a bitter experience. Later we learnt to accept it as a whim of fate. We simply started over again and produced about a dozen short films” .

Again Paulette wrote and directed — sound films this time. Some of the subjects were: Don Bradman, Phar Lap, the famous swimmer Boy Charlton, and the Olympic swimming team. Ken Slessor, the poet, wrote the commentary for the last one.

Paulette became very upset about the loss of all her documentaries. The film on Don Bradman contained a dramatized re-enactment, and was the only film the famous cricketer had allowed to be made on his life. The film went all over the world, but the girls never received a penny from it, although they had financed it themselves. The same thing happened to the other documentaries.

Paulette’s film on Phar Lap, The Red Terror, was pirated and recut after the horse’s death.

One Australian television channel occasionally plays it before the Melbourne Cup — with never a suggestion of a royalty payment. Paulette says, with justifiable bitterness: “We’ve been taken for a ride, which I resent intensely.”

In 1932, the girls made their only sound feature, Two Minutes Silence, based on a play by

Leslie Haylen, who was later a Labor M.P. It told in flashback, the story of four people during World War I. Paulette considers it by far their best film: “To my thinking, with each film I made I got better and better. And Two Minutes Silence was past them all,” No copy of the film is known to survive. Like most independent films at the time it ran into release difficulties, and took nearly 18 months to be screened. Smiths Weekly gave it an AA, the highest rating they had ever given to an Australian film.

Isobel and Phyllis left Australia after this.

Isobel married and went to live in Britain, and Phyllis went to work as a journalist in New Zealand. (For some years now she has been editor of The North Shore Times.)

Paulette wrote a screenplay for a feature film about Flynn of the Inland which she planned to produce herself. But she was unable to raise the money. When asked what actors she had been thinking of using, Paulette replied: “Oh, I had people in mind. What’s the good of talking about it? It’s too late . . . I think that could have been a great film, an epic” .

That was the end of the career of the only Australian woman ever to have directed a feature film, the woman who was described in 1932 as “probably the most outstanding figure in the Australian motion picture industry today.”

Somehow, the McDonaghs have become tagg­ ed in recent years as “society girls” . It doesn’t seem to fit what I knew of the independentminded Paulette and Phyllis, and I asked Paul­ ette if she had ever taken any notice of society goings-on. She replied: “No, nothing. I didn’t give a damn for it.”

I asked her if she had ever paid any attention to the attitude of other women to her enterprises, as they must have considered her rather freak­ ish in those days. She said: “Nobody. I felt, you’re wasting your time if you worry about what other people think. I just did what I wanted to do.”

The day I met her she was fuming over an ar­ ticle which had just appeared in Pol magazine: “They made me sound like an old dame . . .

There are a few old pictures of me sitting in a cane chair hatted and gloved . . . God Almighty!

You can’t wear gloves! Never wore a hat — only once for the still. I had to move the camera, help my cameraman. Most of the time there was only the two of us, the camera and three little legs . . .”

Two other women each produced a feature in the 1920s. Mary Mallon wrote, financed and produced The Price in 1924. The film was dis­ tributed in Australia and New Zealand, and made a modest return. In 1928, a 24-year old girl, Juliette de la Ruze, wrote, produced and financed The Russell Affair, using a £3000 legacy. She hired P. J. Ramster to direct it, but it was poorly reviewed. It was never distributed in Australia, although it was sold to Fox in Bri­ tain as a quota film. The two productions are in­ teresting mainly because they illustrate the feel­ ing abroad in the 20s that a woman could tackle anything — provided she could raise the money.

There were a few other women working in films in the 20s, but only in menial positions — as film examiners, cutting-room assistants, or in fringe activities such as art-work for title cards and posters. One who should be mentioned is Mona Donaldson, who started as a film ex­ aminer with Australasian Films in 1923, the first girl there. She became an expert in laboratory work, learning printing and neg-matching. She also did some editing, and very much impressed the American director Norman Dawn when he

was here making For the Term of his Natural Life in 1926. She says it was Dawn who first gave her confidence. Her understanding of the laboratory side was rare in American cutters.

She assisted Katherine Dawn with the editing on Term and edited Dawn’s next film, Adorable.

Outcast (1927).

Mona Donaldson went to Automatic Film Labs in 1932 on the offer of a better job. In 1934, Charles Chauvel was dissatisfied with the Melbourne editing of his film Heritage, and ask­ ed Lacey Perceval if a man from Automatic could have a look at it with a view to im­ proving it. The “man” Lacey recommended was Mona Donaldson, and she recut the film, although she does not have a credit on it.

She then co-edited Chauvel’s next film, Un­ civilised, and co-edited Range River (1936), directed by American Clarence Badger, at Page­ wood Studios. She was offered a further con­ tract with the studios, but felt obliged to return to Automatic.

Mona Donaldson neg-matched and super­ vised processing for most of the cameramen and directors of the 20s and 30s. She said: “ Film was my life — the boyfriends I lost through last­ minute jobs and working late!”

Mona was highly regarded by her employers, but far from highly rewarded, and in 1946, after an illness, she left the film industry and estab­ lished her own successful millinery business.

Elsa Chauvel worked extremely hard in films in the 30s, 40s and 50s, but it was always as assis­ tant or associate to her husband Charles. She began as an actress, and played the heroine in his second film, Greenhide (1926). At the end of the production they were married. After that she turned her hand to almost anything — con­ tinuity, clapperboy, research, script rewriting, public relations. She had a daughter to look after, and, of course, she looked after Charles domestically on and off location. The only production credits given in her book, M y Life with Charles Chauvel, are for assistant director on Uncivilised, for co-writing the screenplay of Jedda, with Charles, and for co-producing Walkabout (1957-8), a series of travel documen­ taries for the BBC. Her role in films was a familiar one to women in many spheres — a sup­ portive role to a successful man — although she seems to have had a more interesting time of it than most.

In the years of World War 2, and immediately following, opportunities were declining in the feature industry, for men as well as women, but they were to open up in the documentary and short film field. The impact of the British documentary movement of the 30s was only beginning to reach Australia, and Grierson’s theories of film as a sociological tool were to have a very definite influence on the setting up of what is now known as Film Australia. Part two in the next issue. (“You can’t climb Ayer’s Rock with 35mm gear!” — The post-war years to the present), will deal with that, and with the in­ teresting case of the liberated Stanley Hawes.

Acknowledgements: My thanks to Ross Cooper’s filmography of Longford for Lottie Lyell’s credits, and to Film Australia where I was working when I acquired some of the research material. ★

Cinema Papers, June-July — 89

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DE FOREST PHONOFILMS

De Forest Films Continued from P. 20

Capt. Hawkins, who at Sovereign Pictures had been producing a number of educational and information films since 1922, including Forest Wealth, gave evidence at the 1927 Royal Commission into the industry and had a lot to say about the De Forest Phonofilm Company and its activities. He was critical of the Govern­ ment not allowing the sound filming of the Canberra ceremony and went on to mention that the company had made several silent short com­ edies at the Rushcutters Bay studio. These have not yet come to light.

THE COMPANY FOLDS

JANCSO

Australtone and others would fill reams, and Phil Baker, the accordion-playing comedian. anything that hasn’t yet appeared in print is Remember and Hoorah for Radio, two songs most surely in the process thereof. It is in­ by the Radio Franks. The microphone and teresting to note that Capt. Hawkins, towards stand, beside the piano, certainly dates the the latter months, found the British and U.S. items. The latter film appeared at the Phonofilm apparatus too expensive, and with the Melbourne Majestic in July 1927. assistance of several local engineers, manufac­ All of these films are in an excellent state of tured an Australian phonofilm system, which preservation and can be run without risk of was not only far cheaper, but also considered damage on a modern projector. With the excep­ superior in quality to the real thing. tion of Phil Baker, the sound is incredibly good.

The Sydney company Standardtone (Joe Staf­ Every word of each song or sketch can be clearly ford, Jack Fletcher and Bill Shepherd) never understood and the piano is reproduced well. used discs, but numerous Sydney cinema gear The fact that these items, with their original den­ manufacturers soon had to come up with a local sity track 40 frames out-of-sync, sound so well contender for the expensive Western Electric on modern equipment, perhaps stresses once machines, which were usually only leased to an again that the main fault of the system as it exhibitor. Ray Allsop, Ray McIntosh, Cum­ appeared in the 1920s, was the means of mings and Wilson and others, including the reproduction.

Regent Theatre’s Mr Marks, all produced All of these films have now been copied by the machines equal, if not better, than their National Library, with new tracks laid in sync.

American counterpart.

An American, Maurice H. Zouary, over many Even enterprising suburban and country ex­ years collected more than 100 Phonofilms, hibitors who could not even afford a local together with De Forest patent reels, papers and product, built up their own bike-chain and documents, and presented them to the American gramophone disc apparatii so as to bring the Film Institute, Washington.

Talkies to their patrons. One of the first talking Of the films above-mentioned, the AFI pictures to be made in Australia after De Forest, appear to have only Phil Baker, and Brooks was Showgirl’s Luck directed by Norman Dawn. John and Goodie Montgomery. All of the com­ This was made on discs and the sound engineer, pany’s scant Australian output has been lost. No Skipper Pratt, brought out all the gear from the trace can be found of the silent comedies, or the U.S., though he returned when the film was sound films shot in Sydney and Canberra in completed. Although fragments of the film still 1927. ' remain, no trace has been found of the discs.

Any reader knowing the whereabout of De About this time, another Australian film was Forest Phonofilms is invited to contact the made with discs, Out of the Shadows, shot by writer at Box 136 P.O., Gordon NSW 2072. ★ Reg Edwards and directed by A. R. Harwood in 1920-31. Meanwhile Arthur Smith and CineACKNOWLEDGEMENTS sound were well on the way to perfecting the Australian talking picture — all now-famous I am indebted to the following individuals without whose history.

Harry Jones returned to the U.S., in mid1927, and although Hawkins had big plans for 1the Australian division of the company (in fact, he had planned several sound dramas for 1928, all to be produced in a new sound studio at Rushcutters Bay), he reluctantly had to cancel all future arrangements and give the crew notice on October 27, 1927, only nine months after setting up. ’ Several theories have been advanced as to the reasons for the closure, ranging from an audience lack-of-interest in the artists and sub­ jects used, to technical considerations such as poor amplification and loudspeaker reproduc­ tion. When the company folded, three cinemas in Sydney and one in Newcastle were equipped with De Forest apparatus, and there were 15 contracts which could not be honoured. The studios were taken over by Scott Dunlap, who later went on to make The Romance of Runnibede. The plants were dismantled and, as previously mentioned, some of the gear went to Hans Wetzel.

In the U.S. in the meantime, Warner Bros, had made the big time with sound-on-disc, and THE PHONOFILM RELICS Fox-Movietone and others were well on the way to an assured success. General Talking Picture Co. Ltd. bought out the De Forest Phonofilm In the trunk bought at the auction in Windsor, Company and all its subsidiaries on October 3, were found five complete De Forest shorts: 1928. De Forest, however, continued with his The Antidote, a 1200 ft. short drama starring radio and electronic experimentation for many Jameison Thomas, Primrose Morgan and years.* Walter Sondes. This love triangle, where a 26 ft. python is the victor in an horrendous final scene, is an original Phonofilm sketch by Ben PARALLEL AUSTRALIAN Landeck. It was directed by Thomas Bentley DEVELOPMENTS and was probably made in Britain in 1925.

The Bubble, a musical item in which Lillian The stories of Standardtone, Cinesound, Powell dances a minuet with a transparent sphere. The short is tinted blue and pink. ♦Readers may recall a remarkable interview with him in a recent film, The Movies Learn to Talk, in which he expresses I’m in Love Again, where Brooks John accom­ great concern at the progress that commercial radio has panies Goodie Montgomery on a banjo as she made over the years (or lack of progress, for he could not whirls around the room in a sometime daring tolerate the number of radio advertisements he heard during 1920s dance. the programs).

Miklos Jancso

Continued from P .29 Jancso’s films, then, present an appearance of simple propaganda, but in fact, like Red Psalm, they attain much greater complexity and sub­ tlety. Through the interplay of light, colour, movement, the concentration on elemental ob­ jects and ritual, Jancso creates the form of the people’s need to symbolize their condition, to represent themselves in relation to the forces acting on them. It is the acting-out of these needs (to understand and to imagine) in an appropriate, popular and symbolic way, that releases energies necessary to the political Addenda and Corrigenda The editor apologizes that the word “ mythic” was inadvertently changed to “ mystic” in last issues’ Mandingo review. Also, the first listecf film of Tom Ryan’s Top 10, should read Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and not Alice in the Cities, as printed.

revolution. It is the urgency and ongoing nature of this radical process that is far more in­ teresting in Jancso’s films than their relatively easy political resolution.

In a suggestive aside, Jancso commented: “ In my films I want to show that humanity can’t go on the way it’s going. On the other hand, I have played Christ long enough.’’

This kind of perception seems to reflect more accurately Jancso’s distinctive contribution to revolutionary cinema than the rather rhetorical conclusion of Czigany. He says: “ One thing is sure, that Jancso, like all great artists, is committed. He is committed to that little gleam of hope, that in spite of the deadly oppression, the long and agonizing silence of the meek will come to an end: it will give to a piercing cry, which will shake the foundations of all kinds of totalitarianism, just as the walls of Jericho fell at the sound of the trumpet.”

This, I think, is to take Jancso as being both too literal and too optimistic. His films, at their most suggestive and moving, affirm the

assistance much of the information in this article would not have come to light: Alan Anderson, Bill Shepherd, Joe Stafford, Arthur Hansen, Len Jordan, Joan Long, John Gardiner, Graham Shirley.

Special mention must be made of local Archivist, Roger McKenzie, whose initial work on salvaging the films and re­ synching the tracks, enabled a series of viewings which otherwise would not have been easily achieved. Also thanks to the tolerance of the films’ owner, Malcolm MacDonald, . who has graciously stood aside while I wrote about his possessions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY The American Film Heritage — Laurence F. Karr.

From Tin Foil to Stereo — Read and Welch.

A Short History o f the Talkies — Jameison Rowe.

New York Times.

Sydney Morning Herald.

The Bulletin.

Melbourne Argus.

Minutes of the Royal Commission into the Film Industry,

1927.

possibility of resilience and hopefulness. They give expression to that hope, making revolution possible. * JANCSO FILMOGRAPHY 1958 The Bells Have Gone to Rome 1960 Three Stars (or, The Song of the Deer) 1963 1964 1965 1967 1968 1968 1969 1970 1970 1971 1971 1973 1974 1976

Jancso directed only the first part

Cantata My Way Home The Round-Up The Red and the White Silence and Cry The Confrontation Winter Sirocco La Pacifista Agnus Dei Technique and Rite Red Psalm Rome Wants Another Caesar Elektreia Private Vices and Public Virtues

Cinema Papers, June-July — 91

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ROBIN SPRY

Robin Spry Continued from P.43 I think the pressures on Canada th a t a re c r e a tin g th e new nationalism are very fruitful in terms of many energies the U.S. can’t have. I think the U.S. is so guilt-ridden about its general role in the world, whether it’s Vietnam, or the use of resources and energy. No matter how you look at the U.S., it’s the fat cat that’s ripping off everybody else, and the Americans know that and feel that. Even if they are not conscious of it. You feel that in the streets. So I don’t see where the creative energy in the U .S. can come from. Except possibly d esp eratio n . But in Canada, because we are sort of close to being besieged, th at’s creative, being in that situation. I think Canada is going to turn out a lot of good stuff in the next 10 years.

I realize English Canada is still ideologically, mythologically, an en­ tity, but to what extent is it still a real entity? Certainly, the films showing here this year make one very conscious of the Canadian melting-pot . . .

This is an aspect of Canada that has not been stressed before, at least not to us on the outside.

Do you mean that everything in Canada is being forced into the same mould, in the way that happens in the U.S.?

I mean it more in the sense of the American melting-pot, in that C a n a d a , lik e m ost co lo n ia l countries, has depended on im­ migrant stock. And surely the im­ migration patterns meant that the actual English left in Canada were a tiny minority . . .

They are certainly the powerful minority — the Scottish, WASP — as in many countries. But you have to make the distinction between the Canadian melting-pot and the American. When you come to the U.S., you become an American very quickly. If you come to Canada and you are Polish, you stay Polish. And there is a live Polish community. So there is that difference.

I think the films in this Festival reflect that to a certain extent. You see the Russian-Jewish film in Lies My Father Told Me. And the Jewish, also Russian-Jewish, I think, community in Leonard Yakir’s film. So Canada is not a melting-pot. Canada is a mosaic of different cultures. And those cultures in Canada are encouraged to have a much more viable life than is generally the case in the U.S. Although there are elements of that in the U.S., too. Particularly in this city, I gather.

If one is talking in pessimistic terms of a formal U.S. takeover, a total infiltration, do you find it

hopeful that those ethnic groups to the American system. That have retained so much of their own means that if you want private identities? money to make your film, you have in effect to make branch-plant Yes, probably because many of American films for the U.S. those groups are in Canada; they market. Therefore, culturally, all fled major movements, pogroms or you are doing is adding to the offen­ whatever. There are an awful lot of sive against your own country. And people in Canada who really love it’s very difficult. the aspects of freedom that exist That’s where the Film Board is there, particularly in contrast with important. But the Film Board what they fled. Whether it’s the doesn’t have the money to make Czechs or Hungarians in the past very many features. And the film­ 10-15 years. . . . The Hungarian makers, and we represent pretty community in Canada is very big well everybody below producers — and important. In Reaction, there directors, editors, cameramen — is a group of Hungarians talking and our battle is to get quotas and about what a silly little joke the Oc­ levies and an infrastructure that tober crisis was. When they had a will allow us to have an industry in crisis, it was killing one another in Canada that will be self-supporting. the streets, Soviet tanks, etc.

As we are the biggest foreign So, there are a lot of people in market for American films, finan­ Canada who are very, very sensitive cially, that ought to be very simple to the possibility of totalitarian to do. In fact, because the chains power. And I think that’s hopeful. are controlled by Famous and Reaction is the film I actually O d e o n , i.e . by fo re ig n — started on. It’s more anthropology American-controlled — companies, than film. It’s an attempt to see who go out of their way to prevent how people behaved and talked and there being a Canadian film in­ reacted to the crisis over the dustry, and who in fact have enor­ weekend that Laporte was killed mous financial pressure on the and the War Measures Act was political parties in Canada, whether brought in. And really it’s just federal or provincial, they have groups of people talking, from the su c c e e d e d fo r 50 y e a rs in very rich areas of Montreal to the preventing the creation of a real very poor areas; with groups of im­ Canadian film industry. That is the migrants, artists, middle-class classic example of how we are children, journalists, whatever. It’s colonized in economic and cultural sort of a portrait of that society. It’s terms in Canada. called “portrait of a society in So, there’s a lot of energy to crisis” and that’s what it tries to be. make films in Canada, and I think, Exploring in a pressured situation in fact, that the films being shown what people’s attitudes are, from in this festival are probably good the poor up to the rich, or vice­ examples of films that have manag­ versa, depending on your perspec­ ed to be true to the culture in tive.

Canada, in spite of the economic And because the situation was so problems. But it’s very, very dif­ pressured, people did talk and they ficult. And more and more, it’s did reveal themselves. I think it’s a splitting into the branch-plant film­ flawed film in many ways, and I makers, who simply want to use a spend a lot of time kicking myself slightly cheaper situation, to make for the mistakes I made in it. Yet, I American films in Canada, versus think that as anthropology it’s very the nationalists, who never manage interesting. to get any money with which to make their films. Even if they do, Do you think there is a cultural they never manage to get them into renaissance in Canada? Obviously, the chain, or make any of their there is an expansion in its cinema, money back. into feature films and away from ex­ clusively short subjects . . .

When you talk about films that are being made rather than being It’s a very important cultural seen, you are really talking about development. The cultural growth the fact that, in other countries than in Canada is enormous in every Canada, independents have tended field, except film. In films, what’s to concentrate their energies on happened is that, in the last year or production, rather than distribution two, the source of private capital or exhibition. Is this a problem for filmmaking has dried up com­ that’s now being consciously at­ pletely. Because there used to be a tacked? tax loophole, with the result that the whole feature film thing has, to Absolutely. It’s central. The a large extent, collapsed, even Council of Canadian Filmmakers, though this year we are seeing the their basic thing is, even if we can’t products of the year or two before own our system — and that is being that. But in a year or two from now, discussed, that we set up a network you’ll find that there are very few of theatres for our own films — if Canadian features around. And we can’t do that, because that’s that, in a sense, is the whole con­ very expensive, then at least we tradiction of making films that are have a very heavy quota system, supposed to help your culture. and a levy system. In other words, Because they are so expensive, they we insist that every theatre in the are inevitably part of the system; country show x weeks of Canadian and in Canada, that means tied in films a year. And that furthermore,

15 per cent of every dollar that goes through the box-office should go into a production fund. So that you guarantee you have the funds to make the films, and thatthose films find their way into Canadian theatres. We are working against 50 years of colonization, in the sense that our film audiences are used to seeing American films, and we are literally having to create our own audience. That’s a ridiculous situation for any country to be in.

Which is why you need govern­ . ment intervention. Without legisla­ tion, there will never be a film in­ dustry in Canada.

You look at the cinema in other countries, Sweden, or the Iron Cur­ tain countries, much less healthy countries economically, and they, through legislation, have created excellent film industries. And now, theatre and writing in Canada, and even acting, are growing enor­ mously, so the cultural resources are beginning to be available, for film, in a way they never were before. All the elements are getting into place, except that the god­ damned government isn’t doing what it has to do, which is legislate.

And it’s so simple, so clear and straightforward.

That particular battle has been fought in Canada since the 20s, consciously. And since World War 2 it has been very overt. Yet, it’s hard not to be cynical and say that basically American money buys the Canadian government and in that way prevents it happening.

In television, thanks largely to a heroic guy called Pierre Journau, we actually have legislation and quotas. He has extended that into the music industry and, as a result, we have a thriving TV industry, a thriving radio, and a thriving musicindustry. Why they can’t extend that thinking to film, where the mechanism is perhaps more ob­ vious than anywhere else, is quite beyond me.

I am sure in Holland they have the same problem in a less obvious form. I have made a film in Holland and have always felt very close to the Dutch for some reason.

From my memories of their theatres, it’s the same thing; dubb­ ed American films, Americancontrolled theatres and distribu­ tion, and probably American money input into the governments that have to make policies that relate to cinema. Canada is full of Dutch filmmakers who have left Holland because they couldn’t get any work there. Including a guy called Paul Van der Linden who shot Lies My Father Told Me, who is a terrific cameraman.

As you know, I’ve been talking to a lot of Australians this week and it’s the same thing there. I think cinema just reflects the general world situation in terms of power and money. ★

Cinema Papers, June-July — 93

MAX LEMON

Max Lemon

Continued from P.23 How did you do the effects for that scene?

Well there are m ulti-layers through your CRI. Being superim­ positions of negative on negative, one scene comes through the light areas of the other, instead of the dark areas— which works fine.

Those opticals weren’t envision­ ed during the shooting, they were devised later. Consequently, they weren’t shot specifically for that sort of treatment. This is where one’s knowledge of optical printing comes through, and one is able to adapt something. It is a matter of knowing what is feasible and what is economic: I mean, you can do anything — but it costs. v

It is often said that the hardest thing for any editor is the jump from being an editor of documentaries to one of features. How did your first feature, “Between Wars”, come about?

I don’t quite know. I had known Mike for years and it may be my one claim to fame that he was my assistant on the optical printer at Supreme. But I hadn’t seen Mike for quite a few years and out of the blue one of the McElroys rang me up and asked me if I would like to edit Between Wars. I naturally said I would. I don’t know where Tony Buckley and the others were at the time, and what they were doing that had to dig down and drag a Max Lemon out of the woodwork, but it happened. It was all a matter of luck.

Apparently, you did trial opticals It doesn’t matter what you are from the work-print . . . d o i n g , w h e t h e r y o u ’re a cinematographer or what, the im­ Yes. In the scene where Irma has portant thing is getting that first her little dance on the rock, for ex­ opportunity to prove to other ample, I just pulled out the trims people, as much as to yourself, that and we did a test optical straight off you can turn in a commodity. the work-print on to a piece of Features are very different to the Eastmancolor neg. It enabled us to other things you cut. You are not get an idea of what I imagined limited by a proviso that it has to be would happen, and see if the others 90 mins and 3 secs long, etc. You agreed. It is a lot more helpful than make the thing to the length that a mass of chinagraph pencil marks works best. Consequently, your on a piece of work-print. whole attitude towards a feature, as distinct from a half-hour television So you strike a negative off the program, is different. Some of the work-print which you use as original basic principles are the same, but in the optical printer? you don’t take the short cuts that you might for television, where the No, we just use the work-print as chances are that no one is going to an interpositive on the printer and, pick them up on the 23-in screen, off that, print our opticals on to a or hear them over the little speaker. piece of Eastmancolor. We then make a work-print off that, which Do you have a particular system we cut into the main work-print. for handling material, filing trims and so on?

Which lab did the opticals?

Well I have a system, though it is Optical and Graphic — Peter something I acquired from other Newton. It was easier and less time people. Back in my Skippy days, consuming to physically go down Don Saunders had a system which for a couple of hours, hand him the is the one I use, with a few bits of work print and say: “Okay, refinements. And it is this system I now fade that one in and fade that teach to my assistants, though it is one out.” Also, having those tests for them to evaluate whether it done, he could then use them as a works or not. guide when doing the release prints.

Briefly what is it?

It’s not essential to have test op­ ticals done, but it doesn’t cost much All the magnetic is hand edged and it’s a great aid — especially if you can’t have your final opticals numbered, with the same edge done before the mix. The quality of numbers as the image. Instead of the mix is obviously going to im­ every foot, which could take you prove if you have something visual hours and hours, I use every two on the screen to mix to, rather than feet — particularly in features. It is some sterile chinagraph pencil most unlikely that you are going to have a shot less than two feet long. marks flashing by.

We don’t use the full edge number, we use the last three numbers.

Alongside the frame that has the edge number on the magnetic, we also write the slate number. Conse­ quently, you can pick up any piece of magnetic off the floor and im­ mediately see what frame of image its syncs alongside with, and also what slate it is. The whole thing is logged in a book as well. This is quite different to the old system where you put rubber numbers down the magnetic, but put a whole new series of numbers down your image. You, therefore, had one set of numbers for your neg depart­ ment, and one for your editing. The beauty of our system is that it also incorporates the slate numbers.

Do you store by slate or scene number?

Slate number.

Any particular reason?

I suppose a lot of it has to do with the way you receive the con­ tinuity sheets, who’s doing con­ tinuity and what form they take. If they are slated under scene number, you’ve got this problem: if you end up using, say, a close-up of someone from scene 75 as a cutaway in scene 12, you’ve got to remember where it came from. The chances are you will, but if you do it too often you mightn’t. And some screenplays are so written that after shooting, scene 75 might break up into four separate scenes. Conse­ quently, I keep them in slate order from number one on.

How important then is the con­ tinuity person?

Well the more skilled they are, the less time it takes to edit. If you get very little information on your continuity sheets, one wastes a lot of time trying to determine whether a close-up of Fred was the close-up from scene 68 and the medium-shot from 72. “Close-up” and “twoshot” descriptions aren’t necessari­ ly enough, and nothing drags more than an interminable search for a shot.

The sheets should contain all the important information, even what lens was used and its focal distance.

In Picnic, for instance, diffusion filters and nets were listed next to a particular slate, so that the director of photography could fall back on this information later.

For reshoots . . .

Yes, and to pick up a reverse Five days later. He then knows exactly what he used on the First close-up, and how the reverse can be matched.

Given your 20 to 25 years in the Australian industry, what have been the most important technical changes you have seen — from an editor’s point of view?

Magnetic Film and, although I haven’t got involved with it yet, magnetic image. Some of the equipment you work with, or have access to, is more refined and easier to use than the stuff you once had to use, though synchronizers have stayed much the same.

It is what you are putting through the synchronizer that has changed. Celluloid seems able to take much rougher treatment than it used to. I don’t know if the celluloid base is any tougher, though certainly the magnetic base has changed considerably. And I don’t know whether I like it.

It winds at a different rate . . .

Not only that, but at this stage we are having a lot of trouble with our gear, like Movieolas, because they will have to be relined to han­ dle this polyester stuff, which has no solidity of its own. It mangles when it glaunches, whereas the old stuff just used to snap. You could then put it back together again and not hear the break. This new base, however, just mangles itself to the point where you have to get a new transfer — which costs you money.

Things like flatbeds make life easier for the editor, although I still prefer to use a Movieola on dialogue material.

Any specific reason?

I just have an afFinity for them.

You can run a Five frame trim through it without having to put on a leader. I suppose people who use flatbeds every day of the week Find it just as fast, probably faster than a Movieola. I just haven’t had the time to retrain myself. I naturally prefer flatbeds for documentary stuff where you are just wading through masses of footage. On top of that, many clients are quite happy to see their double headers on the old flatbed, as distinct from the expense and time involved in a theatre screening. The quality of the, image and sound, and the overall quietness of the machine, is quite acceptable. ★

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